UNIVERSITY OF
ILLI ' '.BRARY
AT UK. ^ CAMPAIGN
ILL HIST. SURVEY
*
[O'Connor's Statue of Abraham Lincoln]
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS
VOLUME THREE
THE ERA
OF THE CIVIL WAR
1848-1870
BY
ARTHUR CHARLES COLE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1919
BY THE
ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
? //. 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER ........ i
II. THE COMING OF THE RAILROADS ....... 27
III. AGITATION AND COMPROMISE, 1848-1852 ..... 53
IV. PRAIRIE FARMING AND BANKING ....... 75
V. THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT ......... 101
VI. THE ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY .... 125
VII. THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES ....... 153
VIII. THE ELECTION OF 1 860 ........... 181
IX. THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY ....... 202
X. CHURCH AND SCHOOL, 1850-1860 ....... 230
XI. THE APPEAL TO ARMS ........... 253
XII. RECRUITING GROUND AND BATTLEFIELD ..... 273
XIII. THE NEW ABOLITIONISTS AND THE COPPERHEADS . . 290
XIV. THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN ........ 312
XV. POPULATION IN WARTIME .......... 330
XVI. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, 1860-1870 .... 354
XVII. AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR ......... 373
XVIII. RECONSTRUCTION AND THE MILITARY POLITICIAN . . 387
XIX. THE SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS, 1867-1870 .... 404
XX. RELIGION, MORALITY, AND EDUCATION, 1860-1870 . 420
XXI. PLAY AND THE PRESS ........... 436
BIBLIOGRAPHY .............. 459
INDEX ................. 477
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN Frontispiece
FOREIGN BORN POPULATION, 1860 16
RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT, 1850-1860 34
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 1848 60
VOTE FOR TREASURER, 1854 132
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 156
VOTE FOR CONGRESSMEN, 1858 178
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 1860 200
RICHARD YATES 256
VOTE ON THE CONSTITUTION, 1862 270
LYMAN TRUMBULL 294
VOTE FOR CONGRESSMAN-AT-LARGE, 1862 298
POPULATION OF ILLINOIS IN 1860 330
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 1868 414
PREFACE
THE development of Illinois out of the frontier and
through the storm and stress of Civil War is the story
of an evolving western democracy in a period of grave transi-
tion; it was then that the hopes of the pioneer were finding
buoyant expression in the prosperity of the prairies and in
the assumption of a full share of responsibility in the nation's
burdens. The story of Illinois thus striving to be " first in war
and first in peace " is complicated by the place taken by Illinois
leaders on the roll of national heroes; indeed, the historian of
this period finds himself torn between the demands of the
common people for an interpretation of their democratic influ-
ence over against the looming influence of the statesman on the
hustings, in the national legislature, or in the presidential chair.
In the synthesis here presented the author has tried to weigh
with care the proportions due to every phase of the stirring
life on the prairies of Illinois.
The author is greatly indebted to several institutions which
have responded generously to his appeals for assistance by the
loan of source material: The Library of Congress, the Illinois
State Historical Library, the Chicago Historical Society,
McKendree College Library, the Belleville Public Library, the
Joliet Public Library, the Rockford Public Library, and Red-
dick's Library of Ottawa. A large number of individuals and
newspaper offices have cooperated by placing at the disposal of
the author their private files of newspapers which were other-
wise unavailable. Acknowledgments for such favors are due
the publishers of the Rushville Times, the Carthage Republi-
can, the Jonesboro Gazette, the Canton Register, the Jackson-
mile Journal, Quincy Whig, Aurora Beacon, and to Mrs. Grace
Scripps Dyche of Evanston for a copy of her father's Gem
of the Prairie for 1848 and 1849. The trustees of the Cairo
Trust Property have loaned valuable materials now under their
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
custody, as have Mr. W. T. Norton and Mr. J. True Dodge of
Alton, Mr. Judson Phillips of Jonesboro, and Mrs. James W.
Patton of Springfield.
In the accomplishment of this essay in historical writing, I
have been aided by the facilities offered by the Centennial Com-
mission. Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber of the Illinois State His-
torical Library and Miss Caroline M. Mcllvaine of the Chi-
cago Historical Society have been exceedingly helpful in many
ways. I am especially indebted to those who have served me
in the capacity of assistants: Mr. Jacob Hofto, Miss Jessie J.
Kile, Miss Jeannette Saunders, and Miss Agnes Wright. The
usual editorial acknowledgments are due to my chief, Clarence
W. Alvord.
ARTHUR CHARLES COLE.
URBANA, July i, igi8.
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
1848-1870
I. THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER
THE year 1848 marks the beginning of a new epoch in
Illinois history. Not only had the polity of the common-
wealth found it necessary to lay aside its swaddling clothes
for a new constitution, but its citizens began to move forward
in strides that rendered obsolete existing institutions and pre-
vailing methods in almost every phase of the life of the times.
Agriculture was revolutionized in many of its aspects; urban
life discarded more and more of the traces of the frontier;
the prairies were filled up by a progressive population which
flowed in from every corner of the new and the old world;
industry developed into new and untried fields; and the state
came to take a front rank among Mississippi valley common-
wealths. The way was prepared for the leading role Illinois
was to play in bearing the burdens of the union in the storm
and stress of civil war.
The outstanding feature of life in Illinois during the fifties
was the passing of the frontier. Every aspect of its social
and economic make-up declared that the spirit of western
pioneering could not perpetuate its dominance over the grow-
ing commonwealth. Every stroke of a hammer, every rattle
of a farm machine, every puff of a locomotive, was a blow at
the peace and calm of the untamed prairie wilderness, still
the haunt of the rabbit, the deer, and even the wolves a
taunt to the slow and inefficient man power of the primitive
first settlers.
The upbuilding of towns and cities was one of the strong-
est indications of the rapid development of the state. Illinois
of 1850 boasted only ten incorporated cities: Chicago, Alton,
Springfield, Beardstown, Pekin, Quincy, Peoria, Bloomington,
Galena, and Rock Island. Inasmuch, however, as several of
these had been insignificant hamlets in 1840, this represented
a remarkable development toward a more highly civilized
2 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
commonwealth. There were in addition, moreover, towns of
from three to five thousand inhabitants in places to which ten
years before not so much as a trail had led. 1 It was noted
that the growth of towns and villages seemed to run parallel
with the growth of grain; cities grew up only at points of
special vantage for the penetration of interior districts by
incoming settlers and for the ready exchange of farm prod-
ucts for the finished output of the factory and workshop. For
this reason the river towns of the forties had swelled into
thriving cities, their life supplied by the sonorous breathing
of steam engines; and a business formerly confined to the
barter of hazelnuts, butter, and eggs, for buttons, beads, cap
ribbons, powder, and shot, was replaced by a business of thou-
sands of dollars in merchandise and produce. 2 For this
reason, too, the network of railroads that came to traverse
the states developed the municipalities in the fifties; while the
smaller communities were receiving new accretions by the hun-
dreds, Chicago increased from a city of 29,963 in 1850, to
80,028 in 1855, and 109,260 in 1860.
Rapid accumulation of population prevented the municipal
improvements that might well have been expected of places of
such size, for in most senses the cities and towns were mere
overgrown villages. Housing facilities could not keep pace
with such rapid growth; dwellings were small and crude, often
mere shacks. Bloomington erected over 250 new dwellings
in 1850, and a scarcity was still noted, while newcomers to
Springfield, after looking in vain for some place of residence,
passed on in hopes of finding a more favorable location. 3
Home-owning was fairly general among the older towns-
people; but rents for the newcomers were uniformly high,
sometimes exorbitant. There was a steady shortage of dwell-
ings in Alton, and houses were "worth from fifteen to twenty
per cent, per annum on their cost." 4 In Chicago houses that
cost $500 sometimes rented for $300 and $400 a year; "a
moderate little tenement which might be got in the suburbs of
1 Chicago Daily Journal clipped in Illinois State Register, June 22, 1850.
2 Naples Observer clipped in Belleville Advocate, September 12, 1850.
3 Illinois Journal, May 18, 20, 23, 1850.
4 Alton Courier, February 7, 1854, see also September 27, 1852, March 9,
1853, March 20, 1854.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 3
London for 25 per annum here fetches 200," reported a
visiting Britisher. 5
Alongside these conditions, however, were others which
showed how hard it was for Illinois to outgrow entirely the
frontier atmosphere that had shortly before prevailed in most
parts of the state. The backwoods pioneer was not wholly
out of his element in the cities, still less in the towns and
villages. Even the editor of the Charleston Courier protested
at the "enormous rent" he had to pay for his newspaper
plant, $60 a year. At the same time the sturdy shoemaker
at Morris had high hopes of establishing his economic pros-
perity on a capital of $50; he proposed to build a "small
house 12 by 12 middling lumber nails, doors, windows, $12.00
put up by a few neighbors gratis. $25.00 for stock in my line
of business which is shoemaking and the Ballance as a reserve
and i am certain of doing well." Both men applied to the
governor of the state for the necessary loans, the one as a
political backer, the other as a stranger whose only security
was "the word of a man of honor," and who submitted as a
text Raleigh's lines, " True nobleness is not confined to palaces
alone." Q It is to be hoped that Governor French was able to
justify their confidence the sublime confidence of the pioneer
in the spirit of democratic cooperation.
No town or city was sufficiently urban to develop a drain-
age system. In bad weather the streets approached the con-
dition of a quagmire with dangerous sink holes where the
boatman's phrase "no bottom" furnished the only description.
An absence of civic pride made them the dumping ground of
the community rubbish so that the gutters were filled with
manure, discarded clothing, and all kinds of trash, threatening
the public health with their noxious effluvia. 7
In Chicago the drains in the streets, the alleys, and the
5 Chicago W eekly Democrat, April 7, 1855. Special correspondence of
London Times clipped in Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1860; see also Chicago
Press and Tribune, April 2, 1859. Missionary effort in the west was discour-
aged by rents of $200 or $300 for houses that would bring only $60 in the east.
Presbytery Reporter, 4: 74.
*J. J. Brown to French, April 3, 1849; James Campbell to French, July,
1851, French manuscripts.
7 The square at Springfield always seemed in a disgusting condition.
Illinois State Register, March 17, 24, 1853; Illinois Journal, September 13, 1853.
4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
vacant lots were "reeking with every description of filth;"
" all the slops of the houses, and the filth of every kind whatso-
ever, incident to cities, are emptied in the gutters, and offend
the nostrils of every traveler, either on the sidewalks or the
streets," complained a zealous advocate of clean streets.
Michigan avenue was decorated with manure heaps while
the contents of stables and pigsties were deposited upon the
lake shore, a horrible stench arising from that " Gehenna of
abominations." The rain washed this filth into the lake to
be mixed with the drinking water supply of the city, for nothing
short of frogs or fish seemed to clog the supply pipes of the
city water system. The zealous apostle of cleanliness was
often served with "chowder" in his bathtub. Some improve-
ment was made in the later years of the decade; paving with
planks, macadam, or cobblestones reduced the problems,
although only a few dozen miles were paved out of the four
hundred miles of city streets. 8
Then, too, every city had its hog nuisance or some equiva-
lent. The streets, squares, and parks seemed public hogpens ;
hog holes with all their filth met the eye and nose at every
turn. Springfield wrestled with this problem long and ear-
nestly; the controversy came to a climax in 1853, when an
ordinance allowing the hogs to run at large was successively
passed and repealed, followed by the requirement that they be
rung if allowed to run at large. The city council was equally
divided over this question and the mayor pursued a vacil-
lating course in casting the deciding vote; while the hog and
anti-hogite forces wrangled, his swineship contentedly pulled
himself out of the mushy batter of his gutter-wallow, threaten-
ing to upset pedestrians as he carefully chose a freshly painted
fence against which to plant himself and transfer the unctious
matter with which he was loaded. In the fall of that year
swine were more numerous on the streets of Springfield than
in the pens of the state fairgrounds. Urbana had a record of
more hogs in the community than people, and the porker had
equal rights with citizens upon the streets. Decatur's anti-
8 Chicago Democrat, March 30, May 7, 1849, August 7, 1851; Free West,
June 22, 1854; Chicago Press and Tribune, October 8, 1858, March 25, April 2,
1859.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 5
hogite forces triumphed by a narrow margin in 1859. For a
time cows ran at large on the streets of Chicago, often passing
the night on the sidewalks. Quincy prided itself on the use
of geese instead of hogs as street scavengers. 9
At the beginning of the decade not one of the cities of the
state was provided with public utilities. Chicago almost imme-
diately, however, arranged to have its streets lighted by gas
and shortly afterwards provided itself with a sewerage system
and a water system, though the latter was far from carrying
out the original plan to supply the city with pure and whole-
some water. Pekin and Rockton prepared to install a water
system in 1853, while Quincy and Peoria put their energies
into gas companies. Not until two years later were Spring-
field and Quincy able to arrange for water systems; by that
time gas, light, and coke companies were organized in all the
more progressive cities. Soon primitive wooden mains were
installed and the decade brought to Illinois the beginnings of
the so-called "modern conveniences." 10
Chicago, the "garden city," became in this period a cos-
mopolitan metropolis, the commercial emporium of the Lake
Michigan region and the adjacent states. The foreign born
population came to outnumber the native born, with a con-
siderable representation for every national group. After the
completion of the Illinois and Michigan canal the current of
trade which formerly flowed down the Mississippi was turned
eastward, making Chicago the great market place of the
west to the disadvantage of St. Louis which had previously
dominated the situation. Excellent and extensive railroad
connections next brought additional advantages; in 1854
seventy-four trains a day tapped the upper Mississippi and
the whole northwest. By 1851 the total value of the trade
of the lake port reached nearly $30,000,000; in 1855 it had
a grain trade of 20,487,953 bushels, nearly twice that of its
rival on the Mississippi. It had already become the greatest
primary wheat depot in the world; in spite of a chronic com-
9 Illinois State Register, May 5, 12, June 30, 1853; Illinois Journal, May
12, September 7, November 9, 1853; Urbana Union, September 27, 1855; Chicago
Democrat, September 19, 1849; Quincy Whig, August 15, 1853; June 26, 1854.
10 Quincy Whig, August 15, 1853, June 26, 1854; Private Laws of
p. 417-432, 504-505, 510-511, 516-517; Private Laws of 1855, p. 544 ff.
6 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
plaint of a shortage of capital, by 1860 over five million
dollars of capital were invested in Chicago. 11
This precocious western city presented many incongruities.
In 1850 it had several impressive public edifices, "large ware-
houses and stores, five or six stories high, splendid hotels,
five public schools and dwellings, frequently magnificent
churches;" 12 ten years later it had taken on even more met-
ropolitan atmosphere. Yet at the same time these massive
stone and brick stores, warehouses, and factories, even
"palatial" hotels, were surrounded by wooden huts and
shanties. Rough stumps of pine trees were set along the
roads in all directions to carry telegraphic wires. On the occa-
sion of the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1860, the London
Times correspondent reported that Chicago was an " extraor-
dinary melange of the Broadway of New York and little
shanties of Parisian buildings mixed up in some way with
backwoods life." 13 The streets, though filthy, were generally
broad and pleasant; and a commendable zeal for planting
rows of shade trees furnished the beginnings of city beauti-
fication. An extensive park system was planned and given
authorization by the state legislature. Regular omnibus service
was started on the principal thoroughfares in 1850, while the
State street horse railroad was opened in April, 1859. The
community supported seven daily papers in 1853, besides
weeklies and monthlies. With the westward march of the
American people, Chicago came to have a central location;
equipped with fifty-seven hotels in 1855, eight of which were
" first class," it had come to be a point of attraction as a
convention city. 14
Springfield, the state capital, a city of 4,533 in 1850 and
of 9,320 in 1860, was a place of few attractions. It had little
civic beauty, was famous for the wretched condition of its
streets, and for a long time lacked a single good hotel. Citi-
11 DeBow's Review, 15:374; Chicago Dally Democratic Press, January 7,
1856; Illinois State Register, December 21, 1854.
12 DeBoiv's Review, 15:374. It was called "the city of churches;" it laid
claim to having more free public schools than any city of its size in the world.
Chicago Democrat, May 4, June 5, 1849.
13 Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1860.
14 Chicago Press and Tribune, March 5, April 2, 1859; Chicago Democrat,
April 21, 1855.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 7
zens talked of a waterworks system during the entire decade
without accomplishing anything; nor did it acquire any other
public utilities. It was amazingly slow in starting a system
of public schools. Yet it had all the optimism of the day;
lots on the public square sold as high as $100 a foot and
farming property on the outskirts was worth up to $100 an
acre; its citizens always vigorously opposed the numerous
proposals from rival cities to move the state capital to a more
suitable point. 15
Alton, an important port on the Mississippi, struck out
aggressively for a railroad connection with Chicago and for
a cross-state line to Terre Haute; these brought so important
a westbound traffic to the city that, with the rush of settlement
to Kansas, a direct steamship line to that territory was estab-
lished which, as the easiest route, gave the city many of the
economic advantages that St. Louis had previously secured
from this movement. Peoria was a beautiful young city in
1860 with an important commerce sustained by a tributary
agricultural region of unsurpassed fertility and first-rate facil-
ities for manufacturing. 16 In the decade it had passed Galena,
to become, with a population of 14,045, the second largest
city in the state.
Cairo was in this period Illinois' great city of prophecy,
the speculation of a company of eastern capitalists. Situated
at " the most important confluence of rivers in the world "
and at the center of the American republic, at the southern
terminus of the Illinois Central, it was expected as the
entrepot between the northern and southern markets to
dominate commercially the Ohio, Wabash, Tennessee, and
Cumberland valleys as well as the great northwest, becoming,
as a great inland emporium, the largest city in the world. In
1850, however, it was an embryo city of 242 inhabitants, living
largely in wharf boats and small temporary shanties, waiting
for the marshy bottom lands to be reclaimed from the over-
15 Illinois State Journal, February 28, 1861; Illinois State Register, August
25, September i, 8, 1853. The only change they ever would concede was that
the name " Sangamo " or " Illini " was more suitable than Springfield for the
state capital.
16 Presbytery Reporter, 3:247; Western Journal, 1:113-114, 2:267 ff; Chi-
cago Daily Democratic Press, July 12, 1855.
8 HE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
flow of the rivers. 17 With the beginning of active work on
the Illinois Central, rapid developments took place, so that
by 1860 the city had an enthusiastic population of 2,188, with
the neighboring towns of Mound City and Emporium com-
peting for a share of the expected prosperity.
Some of the more important centers of that period were
places which after a few decades ceased to find favor with
Dame Fortune. In 1860 Quincy was a bustling river port
of 13,718 which prided itself on its gas plant and other civic
improvements. Belleville, " a firm city of brick," with half
a dozen breweries, was a prosperous community of 7,520,
famous throughout the west for its lager beer. It sold
great quantities of dry goods, hardware, and groceries to the
Illinois back country; its place with reference to St. Louis
corresponded to that of East St. Louis of today, then the
insignificant village of Illinoistown. 18 Beardstown, thriving on
the transportation facilities furnished by the Illinois and Mich-
igan canal, was an important market for grain and provisions,
but won its right to public attention chiefly through the busy
scenes at its hogpens and slaughterhouses. Peru was for a
time the successful competitor of its near neighbor, La Salle,
for the benefits of the termination of the canal. Separated
by only a half-mile, connected by river steamers with St. Louis
and by the Illinois Central with Chicago and Galena, and
crossed by the Rock Island and Chicago route, the two places
promised to furnish the location for an important trade empo-
rium. The spokesman of the sister town of Ottawa was com-
pelled to admit that there was "more enterprise in a half
dozen men in Peru than in the whole of Ottawa put together."
The latter, however, soon began a rapid development so that
real estate boomed and farms two or three miles out sold for
from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. 19
These cities and towns were the focusing points of a popu-
lation of 851,470 that had by 1850 found homes in the mid-
west commonwealth. The state had already given proof of
17 DeBovj's Review, 19:683; Illinois Organ, April 26, 1851; Chicago Daily
Journal, June 10, 1851.
18 Belleville Advocate, February 22, 1849, March 2, May 4, 1859.
19 Ottawa Free Trader, November 30, 1850, May 13, 1854; Beardstown
Gazette, April 30, 1851.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 9
having attained its majority by showing a natural increase of
a native born population of 333,753. This generation which
had played no direct part in the westward march of the pio-
neer bade fair to outgrow the ideas and ideals of their sires.
Already names of native Illinoisians began to appear on the
roll of the houses of the general assembly, 20 although as
candidates for important offices they were still rare.
Another decade during which the population of the state
increased to 1,711,951 was to work important consequences
in obliterating the more important frontier survivals. So rapid,
indeed, did the forces of progress move in Illinois that the
growing sophistication drove out the restless pioneering spirits
to the frontier regions of the far west. In the period after
1848, they contributed largely to the development of Cali-
fornia, Kansas and Nebraska, and Colorado. With the dis-
covery of gold in California the "gold fever" attacked
Illinoisians; "Ho, for California!" became the rallying cry
everywhere. In the winter of 18481849 companies began
to form at various points ready to move west in the spring. 21
These companies, organized under strict regulations which
excluded all but persons of industry and good reputation,
usually elected a captain, lieutenants, sergeant, and wagon
master and hired a guide to conduct them on the Overland
trail. Stout wagons were procured, drawn by horses, a double
team of mules, or three or four yoke of oxen. At first the
young men were the victims of the California fever, then the
infection spread to the older generation for the romance
of the gold fields made a wide appeal. In certain districts
about Quincy, by February, 1849, a majority of the males
were making preparations to leave. Prosperous farmers and
settled artisans joined the restless youths; 10,000 to 15,000
were scheduled to leave that year. Illinois seemed the banner
state in its contribution of "forty-niners;" a majority of the
wagons on the Overland seemed to hail from Illinois. Plans
for a company of fifty or sixty were made in Alton in January;
by March one hundred and twenty selected emigrants took
20 Alton Courier, March n, 1853.
21 Illinois Journal, December 20, 1848; Quincy Whig, December 26, 1848;
Beardstoivn Gazette, December 27, 1848; Illinois Globe, January 6, 1849;
Chicago Democrat, January 9, 1849.
io THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the trail as the " Sucker Mining Company." Companies from
Springfield, Jacksonville, and other points in western Illinois
were soon off in parties of fifty, one hundred, or more. Many
small groups left without flourish or display; on the trail they
seemed to outnumber the organized companies. " Every
wagon is apparently an independent nation of itself every
emigrant a captain," reported an enthusiastic emigrant. 22
The progress of the emigrants on, the trail was reported
by the newspapers and aroused new interest. Finally, in 1850,
however, as a result of editorial warnings, of discouraging
letters from unsuccessful adventurers, and of the complaints
of " California widows," a dismal picture of life in California
replaced the glittering mirage; and contentment with prevail-
ing conditions was restored in Illinois. The beginning of 1852
saw a serious recurrence of the California 1 fever, but after
another season of heavy migration the movement to California
was gradually restored to a normal basis. 23
No sooner had the gold fever subsided, however, than
another diversion came when the fertile fields of Kansas and
Nebraska were thrown open to settlement in the spring of
1854. An important movement had already begun the pre-
vious year; but now old rangers prepared in companies to go
west to establish land claims* in the new territory. 24 The
genuine hard-fisted yeomanry of the older portions of south-
ern and eastern Illinois yielded to the temptingly high prices
offered for their own farms and transferred their families
to the new pioneer field. The attention of the land speculator
was also attracted to the new opportunities for investment.
A different incentive, however, soon came to dominate this
emigration; in the fight between the north and the south for
the control of the new territory under squatter sovereignty
22 Quincy Whig, February 6, 1849; Illinois State Register, May 31, 1849;
Alton Telegraph, March 23, 1849.
23 Illinois Journal, October 17, 1849, February 8, 1850; Illinois Globe,
December 22, 1849; Ottawa Free Trader, March 16, 1850, January 31, 1852;
Alton Telegraph, March 22, 1850; Beardstown Gazette, February n, 1852;
Quincy Whig, March 16, April 26, 1852. The La Salle Standard reported the
passage of at least a hundred wagons a day with three to five persons each.
Five to twenty-five persons passed through Peru daily.
24 Chicago Weekly Democrat, November 26, 1853; Urbana Union, March
23> *854; Illinois Journal, April 13, 1854; St. Clair Tribune, April 22, May 13,
June 3, 1854; Belleville Advocate, June 14, 1854.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER n
the people of Illinois began to take a hand to preserve Kansas
from the institution of slavery. An advance guard of one
hundred and fifty New Englanders sent out by the Emigrant
Aid Society had passed through Illinois en route for Kansas
in July and aroused considerable attention; 25 when other com-
panies followed, alongside the pioneer who sought the more
fertile prairies of the west and alongside the restless adven-
turer, there marched from the sober homes of the northern
counties, from the rich Military Tract, the garden of Illinois,
the sturdy pilgrim who proposed to plant and water the seeds
of freedom in that fresh soil.
In the beginning no special encouragement to emigrants
was necessary; emigrant wagons passed through the state
with the letters "Kansas" and "Nebraska" boldly chalked
on their canvas coverings. The first mission from Illinois
went from Quincy; a " Nebraska Colonization Company" was
organized in that neighborhood in March, 1855, to found a
city named Fontenelle, in which the moral and intellectual
atmosphere of a free community should be preserved in a
literary society and other institutions. But when blood began
to flow upon the soil of Kansas, the more timid held back.
Then companies of young free-state men were organized and
conducted to the field of "bleeding Kansas," prepared, with
Sharpe's rifles in their hands and the plow and sickle among
the baggage, for either peace or war. 26 Following them whole
communities were aroused to take part in these ventures; the
material means to transfer these companies to Kansas were
collected in the spring of 1856 by Emigrant Aid or Kansas
Settlers' societies in Chicago, Rockford, and other towns.
Excitement began to quicken when, in spite of their mili-
tary preparations, the Chicago company was held up by a
superior force of Missourlans, disarmed, and sent back to
Alton under guard; while the outrage fanned the zeal for
aiding Kansas sufferers, the company was again fitted out and
sent to Kansas by a safer route. 27
25 Alton Weekly Courier, July 27, 1854.
26 Rockford Register, February 23, March 8, 1856; Rockford Republican,
March 5, 1856; Chicago Weekly Democrat, March 31, December 22, 1855.
27 Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 12, 19, 1856; affidavit of Charles H.
Wood, August i, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts.
12 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
A state Kansas aid committee was created in Illinois to
dispense relief, and local committees were organized and set
to work. Upon the arrival of the news of the destruction
of Lawrence, the free-state stronghold in Kansas, a meeting
was held at Rockford at whrch $1,000 was easily raised as
the nucleus of a fund to represent that community. At the
same time a Chicago meeting raised $15,000 to aid persons
willing to go to Kansas as actual settlers. Not to be outdone,
the ladies of Chicago organized a " Kansas Women's Aid
and Liberty Association," with active auxiliaries in the impor-
tant towns and villages of northern Illinois, and sewing socie-
ties worked for the relief of their distressed sisters in
Kansas. 28
Enthusiasm thus aroused caused a general revival of
unassisted emigration in the spring of i85y. 29 Thus did a
state which a few years before had been the El Dorado of
agricultural pioneers, give up a part of her settlers and their
descendants to fill up the still farther " great west"
In the closing year of this decade, the rumor of the dis-
covery of gold again reached Illinois, and the lure of the gold
fields aroused the spirit of adventure in the manhood of
Illinois. Soon the old scenes of 1849 were renewed; a rush
to Pike's Peak attracted companies of young men from all
sections of the state, usually in smaller groups than in the
California gold rush. Thousands left for the gold fields
and many others had completed preparations before the news
came in May that the gold hunters were returning in droves-
with the cry of "humbug." 30
The place of these citizens lost by Illinois to the trans-
Mississippi west had been more than filled by a great influx
from without which was still bringing in a great diversity
of population. There was the Yankee stock from the rugged
28 Rockford Republican, May 28, 1856; Peter Page to Trumbull, June 3,
1856, Trumbull manuscripts; Chicago Weekly Democrat, June 21, 28, 1856.
29 Rockford Republican, February 26, 1857; Aurora Beacon, March 9, 1857;
Illinois State Journal, April i, 1857; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, June 5,
1857.
30 Quincy Whig, January 28, March 19, 1859; Ottawa Free Trader, April
2, 1859; Chicago Press and Tribune, March 28, 1859; Rockford Register, May
14, 1859; Ottawa Weekly Republican, May 14, 1859; Alton Courier, May 19,
1859.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 13
farms of New England, enterprising fortune seekers from the
seaboard states as a whole, and, coming from the old world
at the same time, the restless, ambitious, and freedom-loving
refugees from the political and economic oppression of the
European states all destined to do their part in the develop-
ment of the hospitable prairie commonwealth and by the diver-
sity of the cultures they introduced to hasten the passing of
the frontier.
Of the American born immigrants it was in large measure
the northern elements that made up the westward movement.
The Yankee immigrants found a special welcome because of
their " good old New England character for thrift, morality,
and intelligence;" furthermore they usually brought enough
means to purchase improved farms, thus freeing the true pio-
neer to exploit other pieces of the prairie wilderness. 31 The
Yankees showed a strong tendency to migrate in parties or
even in well-organized colonies, groups of from twenty to
forty families being fairly common. In 1855 two hundred
families came from the vicinity of Rutland, Vermont, under
the auspices of the Vermont Emigrant Association and, on
the lands opened up by the Illinois Central, established a new
Rutland in La Salle county. New England groups first sought
their kind and kin in the northern counties, but it was not long
before they turned to the attractive fields of middle and
southern Illinois. In those regions the colony grouping was
even more marked. Near the junction of the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi with the Illinois Central was Hoyleton, a Yankee
colony of Congregational temperance men and republicans;
in their zeal for education they included in their plans the
scheme of erecting a seminary of learning. 32
In Egypt, Yankee enterprise, industry, and frugality were
welcomed, for they promised to bring about the development
of the enormous wealth that lay latent and unused in south-
31 Illinois Journal, May 19, 1853; Carthage Republican, clipped in Chicago
Daily Democratic Press, November 24, 1855; Belleville Advocate, November 26,
1856; Cairo Gazette, April 29, 1859; Rock River Democrat, April 28, 1857;
Alton Courier, February 4, 1854.
32 Ottawa Free Trader, May 2, 1857; Rockford Republican, May 7, 1857;
St. Clair Tribune, May 22, 1857; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, July 18,
1855; Cairo City Times, July 25, 1855; Ovid Miner to Trumbull, May 31, 1860,
Trumbull manuscripts; Central Illinois Gazette, June 8, 1859.
i 4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ern Illinois. Many a local poet paid tribute to this vast
transforming force:
"And westward ho ! on either side,
See towns as if by magic rise;
What Genii then the wonder works?
Why, none but Yankee enterprise." 33
Both the Egyptian and the New England pilgrim, how-
ever, realized the absence of congeniality in their interests;
the one frankly voiced his execration of "Yankee 'kinks' in
politics," while the other deplored the survival of " intemper-
ance accompanied with ignorance and indolence" that dated
from the earlier settlers from the south. 34 "One thing is
certain," declared a new arrival, "that where New England
emigrants do not venture, improvements, social, agricultural,
mechanic, or scientific, rarely flourish, and seldom intrude."
New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, Ohioans, and even Hoo-
siers also came to play an important part in the settlement
of central and southern Illinois. First, the Wabash valley,
claimed by boosters to be the garden of America, was the
region of attraction; wagons crossed the river at Terre Haute
almost as fast as the ferryboats could carry them. With the
opening up of railroad communication, however, settlers
spread over the entire lower half of the state, which the best
classes of immigrants previously passed by. Two hundred
Pennsylvanians came in a group to settle in Adams county
near Mendon. Joseph and M. L. Sullivant, wealthy land
owners of Columbus, Ohio, purchased many thousand acres
of Illinois prairie and sent out several well-equipped parties
33 Belleville Advocate, February 8, 1849. The Yankee bard paid his
respects to the attractions of Illinois in the Boston Post:
" Westward the "& of Empire takes its Course."
Come, leave the fields of childhood,
Worn out by long employ,
And travel west and settle
In the state of Illinois:
Your family is growing up,
Your boys you must employ.
Come, till the rich prairies
In the state of Illinois.
Clipped in Belleville Advocate, April 25, 1850.
34 Cairo City Times, July 25, 1855; unsigned letter to Trumbull, January
n, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts; see also Western Citizen, August 3, 1852.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 15
of industrious farmers and mechanics to develop them; ex-
Governor William Bebb of Ohio bought an extensive tract
in Winnebago county. 35 These and similar ventures testified
to a new era in Illinois settlement, when the advanced stages
of the frontier had been pushed well across the Mississippi.
A novel feature of the immigration movement was the
assisted migration of women and children. Missionary socie-
ties in cities like Springfield and Danville sent agents to the
east to select worthy orphans to place in Illinois homes;
groups of twenty-five to fifty were brought west and distributed
among the farmers, to whom they were indentured until they
became of age. It is evident that the problem of labor supply
entered into this charity, and such an element is even more
apparent in the scheme to secure for the west the surplus
female population of eastern cities. In 1858 the agents of
Women's Protective Immigration societies in New York and
Philadelphia placed groups of fifty as servants in each of the
towns of Decatur, Springfield, and Urbana. 36
Only a slight immigration entered Illinois from the south-
ern states. North Carolina made some contributions, while
Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky sent many settlers across
the Ohio ; but they were outnumbered even in Egypt by north-
ern born settlers. These new southern immigrants were supe-
rior to the old stock; they seemed "a better class, accustomed
to think & act for themselves." 37
The distracted state of affairs in Europe, with economic
oppression increasingly unbearable and with liberal and revo-
lutionary forces crushed under the iron heel of reactionary
authority, promoted a spirit of restlessness that made the
thoughtful, sober-minded workers
"Turn from the old world their anxious eyes,.
To seek a home beneath the western skies." 38
35 Illinois Organ, June 28, 1851; Terre Haute Journal clipped in Illinois
State Register, October u, 1849; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, March 6,
1855, April 18, 1857; Belleville Advocate, July 18, 1855.
36 Illinois Journal, August 4, 1855 ; Illinois State Journal, January 13, March
17, 24, 1858; Urbana Union, February 21, 1856, March 18, 1858; Aurora Beacon,
April 20, 1857; Belleville Democrat, April 17, 1858; Belleville Advocate, No-
vember 20, 1857; Our Constitution, March 13, April 3, 1858.
37 Edward Holden to Trumbull, March 9, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
38 Chicago Daily Journal clipped in Illinois State Register, July 5, 1849.
16 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Crowded cities of the old world poured forth a mighty stream
of immigrants, whom Illinois received with enthusiastic wel-
come. With almost every national element already represented
in the population of the state, Illinois offered the bewildered
immigrant a hospitable asylum among friendly fellow-country-
men. The hardy workmen found places on the vast system of
public works just being undertaken; to the more prosperous
newcomers were offered the fertile farms of the state. 39
Of the European nations, Germany and Ireland made the
largest contributions to Illinois; in 1860 there were in the
state 130,804 Germans and 87,573 Irish. Illinois drew so
large a quota of the immigrants from all countries that even
before 1850 it could boast of 111,860 foreign born settlers,
or one-eighth of the total population of the state; by 1860
their number had nearly tripled, reaching a total of 324,643.
Chicago, rapidly becoming an important immigration depot,
retained so large a number of the new arrivals that the foreign
born population of the city actually outnumbered the natives.
For a considerable period Illinoisians seem to have been
unaware of the size of this foreign element. In January, 1854,
however, the ice in the Mississippi held up fourteen steamers
loaded with two thousand German and Irish immigrants, who,
landed near Cairo and suffering greatly from cold, want of
food, fever, and cholera, drew attention to the fact of the
heavy foreign immigration. It became evident that the Ger-
man and Irish emigrant societies of St. Louis who aided in
the relief work had no effective Illinois counterpart, although
a few local German societies had their agents on the ground.
It became widely published, also, that of the emigrants land-
ing at New York in 1856 seven per cent went to Illinois, but
they brought with them over fourteen per cent of the " cash
means'" listed with the immigration authorities. Inducements
to foreign immigrants to come to Illinois were therefore
urged; a proper immigration system at Chicago was espe-
cially favored. 40
39 Belleville Advocate, May i, 1851.
40 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, January 24, 1854; Illinois State Reg-
ister, January 26, 1854; Peru Daily Chronicle, February i, 1854; Rockford
Register, February 7, 1857; St. Clair Tribune, February 13, 20, 1857; Illinois
State Journal, January 12, 19, 1859; Chicago Democrat, July 24, 1857.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 17
A considerable accession of French and French Canadian
settlers was made during the fifties. The sons and daughters
of la belle France increased so rapidly in Chicago that just
when the influence of the old regime had about disappeared
they became numerous enough to erect a church of their own
where services were performed in their own language. French
confectionery establishments began to make their appearance
and even a French hotel. Nearby was the strong French
Canadian settlement at Kankakee. It had steadily grown
with fresh additions from lower Canada, the emigration be-
coming so considerable that the Canadian government took
alarm. In. 1857 a French paper, the Journal de L' Illinois,
started publication at Kankakee with a subscription list of
1,200 persons. Twelve miles up the Kankakee river, at St.
Anne, a new settlement of French families from Montreal
and Quebec was started in 1852 by Father Chiniquy, a Roman
Catholic priest and temperance apostle of note, who acted as a
spokesman of French Canadian discontent; by 1860 these
two settlements included over 1,500 families. The settlement
at St. Anne was then just recovering from a period of hard
times and financial embarrassment. Father Chiniquy, more-
over, had become involved in a long and bitter contest with
the Catholic bishop of the Chicago diocese; as a result of
his increasing impatience with hierarchical authority a ma-
jority of his parishoners withdrew from the Catholic church
and in 1860 joined the Presbyterian or Baptist churches. 41
Father Chiniquy himself with 1,000 communicants from
the French churches of St. Anne and Kankakee became a
part of the Presbyterian organization, and thirty-six young
men of his flock offered themselves as candidates for the
ministry.
Other French settlements were scattered over th.e state.
A company of Trappist monks, direct from France, located
^Chicago Dally Journal, November 13, 1850, June 18, 1851; Illinois State
Register, March 9, 1849; Quebec Gazette clipped in Gem of the Prairie, Decem-
ber 23, 1848; Jollet Signal, November n, 1851; Belleville Advocate, September
i, 1852; Chicago Press and Tribune, December i, 1859, January 18, 1860;
Presbytery Reporter, 5:126; Canton Weekly Register, September 18, 1860.
Eight months after the establishment of the Journal de L'llllnols, it was trans-
ferred to Chicago. Chicago Dally Democratic Press, January 6, September 9,
1857.
i8 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
near Beardstown in 1849, while Ottawa, already something
of a French settlement, in 1859 welcomed the arrival of a
large number of families of Waldenses from the Vaudois.
Another Waldensian colony was established near Odell, in
Livingston county, on the line of the Chicago and Alton rail-
road. At the same time a large body of French Canadians
were assisted by wealthy French planters in Louisiana in estab-
lishing themselves at Tacusa on the Illinois Central to serve
as a central depot for the deposit and distribution of the
staples of Louisiana. 42
Probably the most interesting French settlement in the
state was the company of French communists who acquired
the property of the Mormons at Nauvoo. In 1849, under
the leadership of A. Charles Cabet, an Icarian colony estab-
lished itself there ; soon upon the fifteen acres of ground
with its outlying farm 340 colonists were housed; the settle-
ment, with the remodeled old Mormon temple as headquarters
had excellent educational facilities, a good library, together
with workshops, mills, and a store in St. Louis for the sale
of their textile manufactures. The progress of the colony was
chronicled in its official paper, the Popular Tribune, edited
by M. Cabet; later a German and a French weekly paper
were added.
So well did the experiment succeed at the start with a
net profit of $9,000 for the year 1852 that it was arranged
to make Nauvoo, as the parent colony, a place for the prepara-
tion of new colonists who would found similar establishments
in Iowa and elsewhere. Soon, however, discussions arose over
administrative matters, and the authority of Cabet was chal-
lenged by opponents who sought his overthrow ; the opposition
acquired a majority and deposed Cabet shortly before his
death in November, 1856. In resisting the leadership of
Cabet, the rebels insisted upon the failure of the colony so
aggressively that in spite of a considerable degree of pros-
perity, they succeeded in convincing even themselves of the
truth of their assertions. They claimed that Cabet with his
wild theories had fleeced fifteen hundred victims; they, there-
42 Beardstown Gazette, January 10, 1849; Chicago Dally Democratic Press,
March 7, August 20, 1857; Qulncy Whig, March 5, 1857.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 19
fore, petitioned for the repeal of the act of incorporation and
removed to St. Louis. 43 This brought the complete ruin of
Icaria; the faithful remained at Nauvoo but without spirit;
farming operations were abandoned, and the property became
heavily mortgaged. In August, 1859, they disposed of some
goods at a public sale to satisfy a debt of $10,000 and a month
later realized $10,000 on the remaining properties. Thus
out of a factional opposition to the authority of Cabet, an
end came to this promising experiment in the realization of a
nineteenth century communistic Utopia.
During this decade Illinois acquired two Portuguese settle-
ments, one in north Springfield and one in the vicinity of
Jacksonville. In each case they were Protestant Portuguese
exiles from the island of Madeira; the first company of 200
arrived November i, 1849, followed by groups of from 60
to 150, until each settlement numbered 500 persons. These
exiles proved to be thrifty and industrious workers and rapidly
attained material prosperity. They promptly built homes for
themselves and the Springfield group established a Portuguese
school and church where they zealously guarded the cultural
atmosphere of their native land. 44
So considerable an increase in the Scandinavian population
was made during the fifties that by 1860 it numbered well over
10,000. The Norwegians located largely in and around Chi-
cago. They began to arrive in numbers about 1848; a year
later there were nearly 600 in Chicago and by 1853, a Nor-
wegian paper, the Banner of Freedom, was started in that
city. Toward the end of the decade the Norwegian popu-
lation of Chicago was variously estimated at from two to
twelve thousand, with three Norwegian churches in the city.
Chicago acted as a great distributing station from which Nor-
wegians were supplied to other regions of the state; Norse
groups gathered at "Old Sangamon Town" and in the " Kin-
caid neighborhood" north of Athens. Most of them, how-
ever, hired out with the farmers, who were so well satisfied
with their work that some sent money to Norway to contract
43 New York Tribune clipped in Chicago Dally Democratic Press, Novem-
ber 18, 1852; ibid., April 10, 1855, February 21, 1856, February 16, 1857.
44 Illinois Journal, November 13, 14, 1849; May i, 10, 1854; October 9,
20 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
in advance for further help. 45 In 1850 the chief Swedish
settlements were in Chicago, Rockford, Galesburg and Vic-
toria in Knox county, Bishop Hill and Andover in Henry
county, Lafayette in Stark county, Berlin, later Swedona in
Mercer county, and dispersed throughout these northern coun-
ties. Swedish churches were to be found in Rockford, Ando-
ver, and in Chicago with congregations in Moline, Galesburg,
and in other communities. A newspaper printed in the Swedish
language, the Swedish Republican, was published at Galva in
Henry county for over a year, but was removed to Chicago
in i857. 46
The Bishop Hill colony five miles west of Galva was a
settlement made in 1846 by hardy pioneers who left their
native land with their leader, Eric Janson, to secure a religious
toleration denied to them at home. The original settlement
of 400 increased to 700 or 800 by the end of 1850, although
over a hundred were lost in 1849, tne cholera year, when
sixty persons died in one week; the migration continued until
1854 by which time 1,000 Swedish exiles had chosen to join
this colony. Here was another interesting experiment in
communism. With a tract of 12,000 acres large scale agri-
culture was successfully practiced; in 1860 the settlers raised
3,000 acres of broom corn, 2,000 acres of wheat and of corn,
and 2,000 in mixed crops, besides a considerable acreage of
hay and pasture. Besides the brick, leather products, and
other materials needed for local consumption, they manufac-
tured 5,000 dozens of brooms annually, and produced some
famous table linens, towels, and other needlework articles
from flax raised by the colony. The society attained its great-
est economic prosperity in 1860, just before its dissolution and
the repeal of its charter of incorporation. Its collapse was
occasioned by internal dissension and a factionalism that in-
45 Chicago Democrat, January 10, 1848, July 14, 15, 1852, August 15, 1859;
Chicago Daily Journal clipped in Illinois State Register, August 9, 1848; Chicago
Press and Tribune, September 4, 1858; Robert H. Clarkson to W. H. Swift,
October i, 1849, Swift manuscripts. Many Norwegians were inclined out of
a sense of superiority to resent being confused with the Swedes, whose special
susceptibility to " ship fever " or cholera on the ocean trip, they declared arose
from a want of cleanliness and from an addiction to strong liquor.
46 Illinois State Register, January 10, August 22, 1850; Chicago Daily
Democratic Press, April 15, 1856.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 21
creased until the community feature was abandoned in 1860
and i86i. 47
The scattered English element in Illinois was promised
an important accretion as a result of the building of the Illinois
Central railroad. English capitalists interested in the Central
first used every possible means to direct the attention of emi-
grants to the lands of the company; as a result in 1859 a large
body of English farmers and mechanics began to settle in
companies along that road south of Centralia; meanwhile the
agents of the largest English stockholders elaborated a plan
for making such settlement more attractive. A little later in
the same year steps were taken in London toward the organi-
zation of the "Prairie Land and Emigration Company" with
a capital of $2,500,000, the object of which was to purchase
prairie land in Illinois and colonize it with English farmers. 48
Such inducements encouraged English emigrants until the Civil
War began; by 1860 they had reached a total of 41,745.
The great works of internal improvement of the forties
had brought vast hordes of brawny Irish to the Illinois
prairies, many of whom took their place in the permanent
population of the state. A Chicago Hibernian Benevolent
Emigrant Society was organized in January, 1848, to encour-
age and assist immigrants seeking locations in the west. The
railroad construction work of the fifties now offered employ-
ment to those still on the ground and attracted a new immi-
gration, mainly of those unfortunates driven from home by
the potato famine. 49 The Irish remained to a large extent
a restless floating population, little attracted by agricultural
opportunities, but looking primarily to the cities for the essence
of real life; in 1860 they constituted four times as large an
element of the population of Chicago as of the agricultural
regions of Illinois.
^Chicago Democrat, August 2, 1850; DeBow's Review, 9:330; Chicago
Daily Journal clipped in Rockford Forum, October 9, 1850; Chicago Press and
Tribune, July 17, 1860; Rockford Register, November 24, 1860; Private Laws
f f $53> P- 328-329; Kiner, History of Henry County, 638-645; Stoneberg, "The
Bishop Hill Colony," ibid.; Mikkelson, The Bishop Hill Colony.
48 Belleville Advocate, April 16, 1859; Mound City Emporium, May 12,
1859; Our Constitution, May 14, August 6, 1859; Chicago Press and Tribune,
May 17, August 5, 1859.
49 Gem of the Prairie, January 29, February 5, 1848; Illinois State Register,
March 24, 1853.
22 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
There seemed to be two strains, sometimes combined in
the same individuals, in the Irish population of the state.
There were on the one hand the brilliant idealists who sup-
ported the cause of civil liberty and liberal institutions in all
its forms and expressions, whether in the Irish struggle for
independence or in the European contests for self-government.
Their local and state Hibernian societies were important
agencies for the expression of this high ideal as well as of the
feeling of brotherhood among the Irish. Irish relief work
was carried on, and men like Senator Shields held themselves
in readiness to join in the redemption of their native land
when the hour to strike should come. 50
But to the people of Illinois the Irishman more often
appeared in another guise. To them he was pictured as the
noisy, quarrelsome seeker after excitement, who found it in
the company of John Barleycorn, in bloody street brawls, and
even in the lower depths of crime. When an overwhelming
majority of the visitors at police court were repeatedly re-
ported to be Irishmen, it was not surprising that the public
should make such adverse deductions. 51 The common prac-
tice of contemporary journalists was reflected in the point
raised by the Chicago Tribune, December 23, 1853: "Why
do our police reports always average two representatives
from 'Erin, the soft, green isle of the ocean,' to one from
almost any other inhabitable land of the earth? ....
Why are the instigators and ringleaders of our riots and
tumults, in nine cases out of ten, Irishmen?" There fol-
lowed the report of a riot at La Salle and of the murder of a
contractor by a set of Irishmen. The Tribune, aroused to the
point of approving action under lynch law, declared: "Had
the whole thirty-two prisoners that were taken been marched
out and shot on the spot, as the citizens did the Driskells in
Ogle County, some years ago, the public judgment would have
sanctioned it at once."
A more careful analysis, however, revealed a situation
that scarcely warranted such a superficial judgment. The
railroad contractors were often shrewd schemers and hard
50 Aurora Beacon, September 14, 1848; Illinois Journal, January 22, 1849.
61 Chicago Democrat, December 17, 1849.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 23
men who sought to impose upon the ignorant Irish laborers
and to direct matters to their own advantage. Palpably unfair
treatment was almost certain to arouse the temper of the hot-
headed Irishman. As it was, however, thousands quietly sub-
mitted to conditions upon the public works that brought death
or ill health, u from exposure to miasmi, bad accommodation
in camps and shanties, and from improper diet;" when sick-
ness fell upon them they were discharged and turned loose
upon the world. 52 It is to be remembered, moreover, that
the Irishmen who drew the fire of public criticism were largely
members of the sturdy band of humble toilers, brutalized by
the religious and political oppression and economic exploita-
tion of their native Ireland and, in this land of opportunity
which they had so eagerly sought, deprived of contact with
the finer forces.
The German " forty-eighters," the unsuccessful revolution-
ists of 1848, fled to America in a steady stream and were led
to Illinois by Friedrich Hecker, the organizer of the revolt
in Baden. Conditions continued favorable to a heavy emigra-
tion of refugees from the political and economic oppressions
of the fatherland. The German population of Illinois in 1860
was 130,804, with Chicago, Belleville, Galena, Quincy, Alton,
Peoria, and Peru as the chosen places of settlement. This
influx was directed to Illinois by the guidebooks of John
Mason Peck and similar works. Charles L. Fleischman,
United States consul at Stuttgart, prepared in 1850 to write
an emigrant's guidebook exclusively on Illinois, having pre-
viously written two general works. 53
Early in 1854 a number of prominent Chicago business
men enlisted their support in a movement in favor of a law
to create the office of commissioner of emigration, whose prin-
cipal duty it should be to travel through Germany for the
purpose of directing the stream of German emigration to
Illinois. The Illinois Staats-Zeitung, however, opposed the
move as a sharp business transaction and a political maneuver
in the interest of ambitious local politicians. Nothing devel-
oped along this line; instead, taking their cue from the Irish,
52 Illinois State Register, December 22, 1853.
83 Charles L. Fleischman to French, March 20, 1850, French manuscripts.
24 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Chicago Germans organized a society for the protection of
German immigrants arriving at that city and employed an
agent to devote his time to the care of the new arrivals. 54
Similar societies were organized, as the need for them was
felt, at other points of German settlement and carried on an
important relief work.
In this period a new center of German culture was devel-
oping at Chicago. There the Teutonic immigrants created a
set of social institutions in which the familiar atmosphere of
the fatherland was transplanted. German Lutheran churches
and parochial schools under Lutheran preachers the only
schoolmasters had appeared at an early date to perpetuate
their fundamental social traditions. Now the refinements
which they had sorely missed in their new western home were
enthusiastically added: a German theater which made brilliant
the dramatic atmosphere of Chicago ; an orchestra which built
up a musical reputation for the city, and a Mannerchor, in
which the lusty " liedersingers " vied with each other in the
attempt to produce a spirited ensemble. The German brass
band, the German militia companies of black jager rifles, of
Washington rifles, of Washington grenadiers, and of Washing-
ton light cavalry were features of many a gay procession. A
German Odd Fellow lodge fostered the fraternal spirit among
these settlers in true American style. Meantime other German
settlements actuated by the same cultural impulse were acquir-
ing the same institutions and stimulating the spiritual develop-
ment away from frontier conditions.
There was much of an atmosphere of revolutionary democ-
racy in these German circles. The forty-eighters were full
of the failure of their cause. Many were downhearted, but
others looked upon their residence in the United States as a
training for future revolutionary attempts. In 1852 they
invited Dr. Gottfried Kinkel, the German revolutionist, to
include different Illinois groups in his tour of the country to
collect funds for the German revolutionary committee which
they hoped would soon strike another blow. This erstwhile
professor of history and literature at Bonn was welcomed at
54 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, February 2, June 19, 1854, November
5, 1857; Free West, February 23, May 18, 1854.
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 25
Chicago and Belleville with elaborate orations, and generous
contributions were made to his fund. 55
The hopelessness of the revolutionary cause, however,
caused the German population in general to settle down into
more conservative channels. The Turnverein was introduced
into Illinois in 1851 with a company at Peoria and Chicago;
Belleville and Springfield soon had their own German gym-
nastic companies. The Northwestern Turnerbund held its
annual meeting in 1858 at Belleville, and in the following
year the United States Turner organization met in convention
as the guests of the Chicago society. The social democratic
atmosphere of this movement, however, had not been trans-
planted to America; and the political significance of the move-
ment was very slight. The meeting at Belleville was addressed
by Friedrich Hecker of that city, one of the originators of the
Turner movement in America ; his brilliant attack upon Doug-
las and his plea for the republican party showed that American
issues had replaced the problems of the fatherland in the minds
of leading revolutionary exiles. In 1850, however, the centen-
nial of Schiller's birth was commemorated in festivals at Chi-
cago and Belleville which did much toward arousing a feeling
for German nationality on a democratic basis. 56
Rich as was the cultural atmosphere of their communities
and content as they were with the surroundings they were able
to create, these Germans could not confine their influence
within these narrow barriers. Politically courted by both
parties, their leaders took a prominent part in democratic
politics and later transferred their allegiance to the new repub-
lican movement. Gustave Koerner continued a prominent
figure in the politics of Illinois; with him were associated men
like Caspar Butz, a prominent Chicago politician; George
Schneider, editor of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, and one of the
founders of the republican party of Illinois; Friedrich Hecker,
a republican elector on the Fremont ticket in 1856; and George
Bunsen, an early advocate of a public school system, and an
important influence in the educational development of the state.
55 Koerner, Memoirs, 1:576, 580; Bess, Eine popular e Geschichte der Stadt
Peoria, 434.
56 Koerner, Memoirs, 2:45-50, 69.
26 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
The German voters held the balance of power between the
whig and democratic parties before 1856 and between the
democratic and republican parties after that date. The demo-
crats rewarded them by giving Koerner the lieutenant gover-
norship in 1852, and the republicans in 1860 honored in the
same way Francis Hoffman, a Chicago banker and a former
whig. The Lutheran and Catholic clergy exercised a strong
political influence upon their congregations; being conserva-
tives like the rest of their profession, they were slower to
see that they were acting "wickedly, and against God's Holy
will, by their supporting the Democratic party." Those in the
outlying towns of Washington and Clinton counties were a unit
for Buchanan, in 1856, but in 1860 their ranks were broken as
the result of an aggressive campaign by republican agents. 57
The German press of Illinois, firmly grounded in this
decade with a daily in every important center, showed better
than anything else that the Germans had turned their backs
upon Europe and taken up the political issues of the state and
nation. These papers were naturally democratic organs until
the slavery issue led them into the new republican party. The
Illinois Staats-Zeitung was established at Chicago in 1848 and,
under the editorial direction of George Schneider and his asso-
ciates, wielded an important influence. It became a daily in
1851. Other experiments to establish German papers in Chi-
cago inevitably failed after a short struggle. This was true
in other Illinois German centers where a single paper was
successfully established, and other attempts to enter the field
fell stillborn.
As thus these different racial elements began to make
potent their distinctive contributions to the evolution of the
prairie state, it became increasingly evident that the simple
society of the frontier state was giving way to the complexity
of a mature commonwealth.
57 William H. Pickering to J. Gillespie, July 20, 1860, Gillespie manuscripts.
II. THE COMING OF THE RAILROADS
DURING the decade preceding the war, the coming of the
railroads revolutionized life on the prairies of Illinois.
The advent of the " iron horse," his rapid multiplication, and
his fiery plunges through the unsettled wildernesses that sepa-
rated the river valleys, trampled under foot the trappings of
the frontier state and furnished the power which produced
industrial Illinois of today. There is romance in the story of
how those changes were wrought; it is a wild and confused
tale of lofty idealism smothered by lust for wealth and for
power, of a spirit of public service buried in zeal for self-
aggrandizement, of popular will compromised by factionalism
and intrigue. It is the tale of human life in natural re-
action to the complex economic institutions of modern
society in which public welfare is at the mercy of men tempt-
ed to confine their vision within the narrow horizon of self-
interest.
The great need of the pioneer west had always been good
transportation facilities to connect the sturdy farmer with an
entrepot in which to market his surplus and from which it
might be transported to the agents of the ultimate consumer
in the industrial centers in the east. The facilities of Illinois in
1848, however, were limited either to the use of muddy prairie
roads by the mud wagon, the prairie schooner, the stage, and
other wheeled vehicles, or to the navigation of river systems
that networked the state. Neither of these methods had been
brought up to a high state of efficiency: river improvement
was a prime necessity, but the state treasury did not permit
of expenditures in that field, and the federal government had
been dispensing "pork" with considerable economy. The
general assembly did continue to create state roads by legis-
lation, laying them out by stakes in the prairie and blazes on
the trees, but experience demonstrated that even a sovereign
27
28 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
state could not legislate a mudhole into a turnpike. Attempts
at road improvement by local authorities and by private cor-
porations availed little.
Coincident with the revival of railroad agitation, the plank
road fever seized Illinoisians. 1 A general law was enacted in
1849, with later revisions to make easy the incorporation of
plank road associations. 2 Companies secured charters and
ambitiously organized to give the cities of their state the
advantages of improved transportation over " farmer's " or
" poor man's roads." From a provoking indifference that
prevailed in. 1848, the farmers aroused themselves to a state
of tremendous enthusiasm. Hundreds of plank roads were
located, and stock was eagerly taken up. Chicago entered
the field with the Southwestern plank road toward Naperville
and the Northwestern road toward Elgin; in the first six
months of only partial operation of the latter the toll receipts
were so heavy that the road paid expenses and forty-two per
cent on the money invested. 3 Another project was that of
building a road from the southern limits of the city to the
north line of Will county; $53,000 of stock was subscribed
on the first day, and three months later teams were rattling
over the first mile and a half. 4 So it was all over the state.
A traveler up the Illinois river reported almost every town
and landing " engaged in constructing plank roads to the inte-
rior. Florence is building a road to Griggsville and Pitts-
field Beardstown to Virginia Frederic to Rushville and
Macomb Copperas Creek to Canton Liverpool to Can-
ton, also Pekin to Bloomington. Peoria has several in con-
templation. So also has Peru, La Salle and Ottawa. The
plank road fever fully keeps pace with the railroad excite-
ment." 5 By the middle of 1851, six hundred miles of plank
road were said to have been built or laid out; at a cost of
approximately $15,000 a mile, this involved an investment of
nearly a million dollars. While mere child's play compared
1 Joliet Signal, April 10, 1849; Illinois State Register, January 24, 1850;
Chicago Democrat, July 31, 1850.
2 I Laws of 1849, p. 138-146; Laws of 1851, p. 11-12, 15-18, 146-147.
3 Prairie Farmer, July, 1850; Illinois State Register, January 31, 1850.
4 Chicago Daily Journal, May 28, 1850.
5 Chicago Tribune clipped in Illinois State Register, March 13, 1851.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 29
with the difficulty and expense of railroad construction or
with the facilities thereby afforded, these projects brought
immediate results in the improvement of transportation
conditions.
More significant by far was the completion of the Illinois
and Michigan canal in the spring of 1848. This important
connection between the Illinois valley and the Great Lakes was
the dream-child of the prophets of the pioneer west, and its
achievement meant the fulfillment of a long cherished vision.
Heavy traffic began immediately, and a line of packets went
into regular operation between Chicago and Peru. In the
1 80 days of navigation in that season nearly $88,000 was
collected in tolls from 162 licensed boats on the canal. Navi-
gation opened again in April, 1849; an d in spite of complaints
of mismanagement made by Chicago commercial interests, 6
receipts averaged nearly fifty per cent more than the previous
season. By 1850 and 1851 the limits of the canal were so
nearly reached that it was necessary to restrict its use to boats
drawing no more than four feet and three inches. Though
boats carrying nearly six thousand bushels of corn passed
through the canal, the suggestion was made that it ought to
be enlarged into a ship canal navigable by steamers of three to
five hundred tons.
As a result of the canal traffic the entire upper river valley
experienced a tremendous awakening. Lockport became a
bustling town with large freighting and boat-building inter-
ests; and Joliet, Ottawa, La Salle, and Peru shared in the
general prosperity. To Chicago, however, went the special
advantages of the trade that followed the new route. The
contents of the enormous granaries on the banks of the Illinois,
which previously had no other outlet than the Mississippi
river, now took advantage of cheap transportation by way of
the canal. Unless a clear margin of from five to eight cents
a bushel prevailed in favor of St. Louis, corn almost invari-
ably took the cheaper northern route; and Chicago received
the huge profits of the middlemen. 7 It was not evident, how-
6 Ibid., July 3, 1849; Chicago Daily Journal, April 15, 16, 1851.
7 St. Louis Intelligencer clipped in Illinois State Register, April i, 1852;
ibid., April 18, 1852.
30 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ever, that the canal could endure the competition of parallel-
ing railroad lines. 8
A natural complement to this development was the grow-
ing importance of Chicago as a lake port. In 1850 a fleet
of 145 sail and four steamers, totalling 20,637 tons > was
registered in the district of Chicago. Inasmuch as the com-
mercial supremacy of that port depended not upon the rail-
roads but upon the superiority of its lake marine for the
economical interchange of products with the east, energetic
efforts were made to maintain the advantage even after the
building of the trunk roads opened a sharp competition.
Before the coming of the railroads, the various companies
operating steamships on the lakes had in 1848 and 1849
taken advantage of the favorable situation to fix uniform
and increased rates. Such arrangements could not hold later,
however, when it was seen that only by low freight rates could
there be a steady increase in the tonnage of lake commerce.
A policy was pursued of furnishing more and more extensive
accommodations, which finally led to the consideration of a
ship canal for direct trade with Europe by way of Georgian
Bay to Lake Ontario. 9
One essential to extensive water transportation was the
matter of river and harbor improvement; regardless of party
affiliations, federal aid was invoked by Chicagoans and citizens
of northern Illinois. A river and harbor convention was held
at Chicago in July, 1847, which declared the constitutional
authority of congress over improvements of a national char-
acter; the Great Lakes, and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers
were designated as within the purview of congressional powers.
Since financial embarrassment prevented the state itself from
undertaking internal improvements, a northwestern Illinois
river convention at Peoria in November, 1851, unanimously
urged the national government to assume the expense of remov-
ing the obstacles to navigation from the Illinois river. Public
sentiment in the west became too strong on this subject to
brook the opposition of democratic leaders, who diplomatically
8 See letters to W. H. Swift in the Swift manuscripts.
e Chicago Democrat, April 20, May 8, 1848; September 17, 1849; Chicago
Daily Democratic Press, October 17, 1855.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 31
yielded to the prevailing demand. True, southern Illinois chose
democratic orthodoxy on this point and sustained the policies
of President Polk and other party leaders; but the predomi-
nating voice of upper Illinois determined the course of Doug-
las, who championed river and harbor appropriations and
stoutly contended that even an appropriation for the improve-
ment of the Illinois river fell within the principles laid down
by Andrew Jackson. In 1852, however, Douglas hit upon the
expedient of state tonnage duties as a method of eliminating
political bargaining in the raising of funds for such improve-
ments. A year later during the agitation for the conversion
of the Illinois river into a national thoroughfare of trade,
Douglas brought his tonnage duty scheme aggressively to the
fore, but suddenly the whole issue was pushed completely aside
by the all-absorbing interest in the slavery question. 10
The telegraph was the true forerunner of the railroads.
By the beginning of 1848 the outposts of the eastern telegraph
lines had been pushed westward to Chicago, Springfield, and
St. Louis. Under the act of February 9, 1849, f r tne estab-
lishment of the telegraphs, connecting lines were soon sent out
in every direction, so that by 1850 the outlines of an extensive
telegraph system networked the state. In December, 1848,
the first presidential message was relayed to the Illinois border
at Vincennes; two years later almost every town and village
had been placed in touch with current happenings by the aid
of "lightning wires." The Illinois system was largely con-
trolled by Judge John D. Caton, who rapidly became "the
telegraph king of the West." 1X
Many improvements in land and water transportation and
of telegraphic communication resulted from the stimulus of
railroad agitation and the completion of new rail connections.
These did not come, however, until the state had learned the
full lesson of the collapse of public finance and of private
enterprise that followed the panic of 1837. The reaction that
had then set in placed the advocates of railroad construction
10 Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 6, 13, 1847; Illinois State Register, July
16, 1847, December 4, 1851; Ottawa Free Trader, November 15, 1851; Chicago
Daily Journal, November 15, 1851; Chicago Democrat, November 29, 1851;
Douglas to Matteson, Alton Courier, January 28, 1854.
11 Chicago Weekly Democrat, November 5, 1853; Koerner, Memoirs, 1:509.
32 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
upon the defensive and engendered a new caution and sober-
ness of judgment that augured rather better for the future
development of the state. But the rich resources of Illinois,
increasingly evident, could not be ignored; railroad schemes,
accordingly, began to reappear to run the gauntlet of public
opinion; and in the closing years of the forties a serious rail-
road fever began to infect the people of the state, for it
was becoming more and more apparent that lack of adequate
transportation facilities alone held back development; thirty-
six counties with over two-fifths of the population of the state
had only unimproved mud roads over which to market their
crops. Extremely fertile regions little more than twenty miles
from the canal, the lake, and the rivers, however, lay isolated
and untouched because of the lack of cheap internal transpor-
tation. Without adequate market facilities, the rich prairie
loam of the east central counties could not begin to compete
with the less fertile soil in Egypt or northern Illinois. More-
over, the settlement of the state had gone on apace, the
agricultural output had more than doubled in a decade, while
industrial conditions showed that the atmosphere of the log
cabin and of homespun had yielded to the march of progress.
There was still fabulous mineral wealth to be tapped, and a
large part of the state was virgin soil one-third of the land
remained in the hands of the federal government.
Two policies were involved in this new discussion: the
need of tying together the various parts of the state and
opening up the resources of unsettled areas by one or two
north and south routes and by corresponding crosslines sug-
gested projects of considerable dignity and expense which
might be utilized to connect with trunk lines to the Atlantic
seaboard and with the Mississippi water route; there was also
the natural ambition on the part of isolated localities for short
but necessary connections with undeveloped mineral deposits,
with nearby markets and with adjacent water routes. The one
need was theoretical and prophetic, the other practical and
immediate. To realize these policies, a number of projects
now seemed to warrant support: a central railroad beginning
at Cairo, the southern point of the state, and running north
to the terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal with
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 33
branches to Galena and Chicago; a connection between Chi-
cago and Galena in the northwestern corner of the state, which
would connect the Atlantic coast with the Mississippi as a
continuation of the Michigan Central; an extension of the
Northern Cross line from Springfield and from Meredosia so
as to complete the lateral bisection of the state, and a line
between Springfield and Alton with the possibility of a later
extension northward to Chicago.
The interests of the chief towns of the state were linked
with this system. Cairo was expected to become the southern
entrepot of Illinois ; Springfield a halfway station in the whole
system ; Alton and Galena were to profit as termini, while such
places as Rockford would be rescued from their isolation in the
country. To Chicago, however, went the peculiar benefits of
the projected system. A Chicago branch of the Illinois Central
was counted on as a prime necessity, for, like the Illinois and
Michigan canal, it would divert trade from St. Louis. The
wretched condition of the Galena road out of Chicago consti-
tuted an effective argument when it was again pointed out that
this made the lake-shore city unable to compete with the freight
rates by way of St. Louis. In both instances the water routes
of Chicago were tied up for several months by the freezing of
the lake and canal, whereas St. Louis had no such handicap. 12
This " Illinois plan " for a system of railroads was advo-
cated as the embodiment of true "state policy" for the devel-
opment of the state and its interests; projects not included in
the plan met with prompt opposition. An Ohio and Missis-
sippi route running across the state from St. Louis to Vincennes
and Cincinnati, with eastern connections, was condemned on
the ground that it would violate "state policy;" Illinois could
not afford to contribute to the building up of a city of an out-
side state at the expense of all the small towns along the route.
A similar argument was urged against the Atlantic and Missis-
sippi railroad, a proposed line from St. Louis to Indianapolis
or Terre Haute; most objections disappeared, however, with
the suggestion that Alton be made the terminus. 13 It was
12 Chicago American, June 25, 1840; Chicago Daily Journal, February 4, 5,
1847.
13 Alton Telegraph, February 5, 19, 26, March 5, 1847.
34 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
suggested that a railroad might connect the Mississippi river
at the Rock Island rapids to the canal and slack water navi-
gation of the Kankakee, but for a long time Chicago interests
were neutral. 14 Opposition to "state policy" was fairly well
localized in the southern quarter of the state, a region directly
tributary to St. Louis. 15 There it was felt that every facility
ought to be afforded by the state to all companies desiring
charters, and sentiment developed in favor of a general rail-
road incorporation act. In reply the people of Egypt were
told by advocates of "state policy" that they were about
to cut their own throats by favoring a course which would
prevent the building up of an important city in their own
section. 16
The quarrel over "state policy" became especially heated
in the summer of 1849. The supporters of the Ohio and
Mississippi road were anxious to secure legislative authority
for their project and welcomed the idea of a special session
of the legislature which was then being urged to fill the seat
in the United States senate left vacant as a result of Shield's
ineligibility. The question of a called session aroused general
interest; the northern counties were strongly opposed, 17 while
the southern section was anxious to secure the railroad con-
nection in question. Local railroad meetings, followed in June
by a general railroad convention at Salem, were held by advo-
cates of a rail connection between St. Louis and southern
Illinois. This convention, termed by its opponents a "Rebel-
lion Conclave, a Rebellion against our own State," 18 was
attended by Governor French, who was himself interested in
the St. Louis road; he and the Springfield democratic machine
were opposed to the "state policy" propaganda and were
carefully canvassing the situation. When it became evident
that the discussion had aroused a general popular interest in
14 Chicago Daily Journal, June 5, 1847.
15 Belleville Advocate, October 14, December 9, 1841, November 19, 1846.
A line to connect Belleville with Illinoistown which would make the first town a
suburb of St. Louis and a summer resort for transients was too local in interest
to attract favorable notice from outside.
16 Cairo Delta clipped in Illinois State Register, March 3, 1849; Illinois
Journal, May 29, 1849.
17 Chicago Democrat, August 27, 1849.
18 Pickering to French, June 16, 1849, French manuscripts.
CHICAGO
Railroad
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 35
railroads and that the state was about to be swept by a veri-
table railroad fever, the governor issued a proclamation calling
for the special session and enumerating railroad legislation
among its objects. 19 He was at once bitterly assailed for
taking this step and dubbed the tool of St. Louis and of a
clique of railroad speculators. The Charleston Globe, a demo-
cratic paper from French's home district, edited by a personal
friend, was convinced that St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Vincennes
were " tricking Illinois out of interest and privileges which are
of vast import." 20
A bitter struggle was now under way. The advocates of
" state policy" held railroad meetings and called for a general
railroad convention to meet at Hillsboro. At this meeting,
which was held on the fourth of October, eight or ten thou-
sand persons coming from fifteen or more counties decided
to terminate the tribute to St. Louis and passed resolutions
aggressively demanding that no legislation be attempted in the
interest of Missouri connections. 21
When the legislature assembled, Governor French called
attention to the authority of that body to pass general laws
regarding internal improvements and recommended a general
railroad law to end the disputes that had been occupying so
much attention in politics and legislation. The "state policy"
men were able to defeat any direct form of the St. Louis propo-
sition. Their opponents then came out for "liberal general
laws" and made sufficient headway to cause the moderate
"state policy" men to support a bill "for a general system
of railroad incorporations " which was passed and immediately
approved by the governor. This act, however, was considered
a triumph for " state policy," as it required every road to
secure a special grant of a right of way and legislative action
to fix its termini. 22 For this reason both the demand for a
19 Preston to French, April 12, 1849, and Casey to French, August 23, 1849,
French manuscripts; Illinois State Register, September 4, 1849.
20 Latshaw to French, December 4, 1848, French manuscripts; Illinois Globe,
September 15, 1849.
21 Latshaw to Keating, Buckmaster, Smith, et al., May 27, 1849, Gillespie
manuscripts; Illinois Globe, June 16, 1849; Alton Telegraph, August 10, October
10, 1849.
22 Illinois State Register, October 25, December 20, 1849; 2 Laws of 1849,
18-33, 33-35; Illinois Globe, November 10, 1849.
36 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
cross-state road to St. Louis and for a " real" general railroad
law continued.
The most popular railroad project in Illinois was clearly
that for a great central highway connecting the northern
"Yankee" counties with the region of "Egyptian darkness."
It found its advocates in all parts of the state and, while
looked upon as a primary feature of " state policy," was also
warmly supported by the "anti-state policy" party. A com-
pany had been organized and incorporated in 1836 to build
such a road; it was the backbone of the system provided for
under the internal improvement act of 1837, under which a
considerable amount of preliminary work was done; and it
was revised in 1843, when the rights of the state were trans-
ferred to the Great Western Railway Company, incorporated
to construct a railway from Cairo to the Illinois and Michigan
canal. Confidence in this undertaking, however, had become
impaired as a result of continued ill-fortune; and in 1845
the company yielded its charter and its work reverted to the
state. 23
The disastrous failure of railroad undertakings in general
and of this central project in particular seemed to furnish
convincing evidence that large and expensive enterprises could
not succeed without material aid from the national govern-
ment. Senator Sidney Breese was from the start a champion
of the Illinois Central railroad; his favorite scheme was to
induce congress to grant to the builders of the road pre-
emption rights to a portion of the public lands through which
it should pass. 24 This would enable the railroad company to
market the lands at a profit, which would insure an income
on the investment. Breese seemed to have secured little assist-
ance, however, from other members of the Illinois legislature.
With the entry of Stephen A. Douglas into the United States
senate an important advance was made in the preparations
for successful railroad construction in Illinois. Douglas was
also an ardent supporter of the central road, but differed with
his colleague's preemption policy in that he advocated a direct
23 Brownson, History of the Illinois Central Railroad, 17 ff. ; Newton, Rail-
way Legislation in Illinois, 21 ff. ; Ackerman, Historical Sketch of the Illinois
Central Railroad.
24 Congressional Globe, 29 congress, i session, 208.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 37
grant of land to the state of Illinois, which was to be respon-
sible for the construction of the road. 25 This form of national
aid in internal improvement made allowance for the tenderness
of democratic feeling on the subject of state rights.
Both Breese and Douglas had personal interests in this
great undertaking. Both were strongly inoculated with the
western fever of land speculation; Breese, one of the original
incorporators in 1836 and a director of the Great Western
Railway Company, sought to satisfy his ambitions in connec-
tion with the construction of this railroad, while Douglas,
moving to Chicago in the summer of 1847, shrewdly foresaw
the development of a western metropolis at this commanding
position on the lower end of Lake Michigan and hazarded his
available capital in a heavy investment in Chicago real estate. 26
Moreover, Douglas was more keen than his less able colleague
in the analysis of political benefits; he realized the growing
seriousness of the sectional line of cleavage between the north-
ern and southern parts of the state and the threat at his own
political ambitions involved therein; accordingly, a scheme
that promised to contribute so effectively to a greater unity and
harmony in party politics was certain of a hearty welcome.
Douglas now stressed the Chicago connection, which had
been subordinated in previous schemes. He undertook to draw
on the natural interests of the business men of that city, of
shippers along the Great Lakes, and of eastern capitalists to
secure support for the central project. He featured it, there-
fore, as a trunk line connecting the Atlantic seaboard with the
Mississippi river at Cairo by way of Chicago and the lakes.
Thus destroying some of the sectional character of the enter-
prise, he added eastern support to the general western demand
for the inaugurating of government aid to railway construc-
tion. As a result his land grant bill easily carried the senate,
although the south and the landless states, western as well as
eastern, combined to effect its defeat in the house on strict
25 See correspondence between Douglas and Breese in Breese, Early History
of Illinois, appendix; also see Illinois State Register, January 23, March 13,
1851.
26 Breese to Douglas, Illinois State Register, February 6, 1851. Governor
French also had a " private interest " in the Chicago branch. Sturges to French,
August 7, 1851, French manuscripts.
38 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
construction grounds. 27 Breese's proposition then had the
same legislative experience.
Douglas' measure was lost by such a close vote in the
house that the railroad promoters concluded that it was only
a matter of time before the measure could be passed. The
Illinois legislature, therefore, was induced by the members of
the former Great Western Railway Company, the most formi-
dable aggregation of capital in the state, to renew their charter,
into which a clause was smuggled surrendering to the company
whatever lands the federal government might grant to the
state. 28 Knowledge of this situation in Illinois embarrassed
Douglas and the Central advocates at Washington until the
company was induced to surrender its corporate rights tempo-
rarily. Then Douglas, aided by Shields, who had succeeded
to Breese's seat, and by John A. McClernand, John Went-
worth, and William H. Bissell of the house delegation, pressed
the land grant proposition in congress; by making provisions
for similar grants to Alabama and Mississippi, the hostility
of the south was allayed, so that the " Chicago and Mobile
railroad" measure was able to survive a bitter opposition in
the lower house 29 and become law on September 20, 1850.
The question immediately arose as to how the central
road should be constructed. The corporate interest concerned
was a group of capitalists, dominated from the beginning by
Darius B. Holbrook, who were organized as the Cairo City
and Canal Company for land speculation at the southern Illi-
nois terminus. This "Holbrook company" was anxious, under
the charter of the Great Western, to secure the benefits of the
federal land grant by constructing the road; it had, indeed,
pursued a policy of watchful waiting until favorable action by
congress was assured before taking the steps required under
the charter for the construction of the road. 30
The company was, therefore, unwilling to yield its charter
27 Brownson, History of the Illinois Central Railroad, 25 ; Johnson, Stephen
A. Douglas, 170-171.
28 This act was not published in the session laws of 1849; see, however, its
repeal, Laws of 1851, p. 192-193.
29 Congressional Globe, 31 congress, i session, 1838.
30 Holbrook to French, December 24, 1849, September 2, October 8, 1850,
French manuscripts; see also Greene and Thompson, Governors' Letter-Books,
1840-1853, p. 235.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 39
unless reincorporated in another form. But Douglas was
sufficiently irritated by the grasping ambitions of the specu-
lators to suggest that it was not a bona fide construction
company but on the contrary was planning to profit by the
sale of the charter in Europe. It was suggested that if the
work were to be done by a private corporation, a more dis-
interested group of eastern capitalists might be found to do
the work under proper restrictions. This proposition does not
seem to have grown out of any rival interests, as it was some
time before any definite project was placed before the people.
Another suggestion was that a company composed of holders
of state bonds be given the right to construct the road under
semi-legislative management, thus simultaneously reestablish-
ing the credit of the state. Though many advocates of direct
state construction were still to be found, the lessons of the
past weighed heavily against such an experiment; Senator
Shields especially argued against the practicability of this
method. 31
When Senators Douglas and Shields returned in triumph
from Washington they received the gratitude of the state for
their sturdy devotion to the land grant; about the banquet
table the victory they had secured was celebrated, and its sig-
nificance proclaimed in the flowery language of the after-dinner
speaker. The adherents of all the various ways of using the
land grant soon clashed in a free for all political fight; with
no definite provision for the route of the road, every village
and hamlet along the line sought to influence the choice of
route favorable to its development. In each legislative district
the practical obligations of the next assembly were carefully
considered; but the schemes for state ownership and for the
continuance of the Holbrook company, being concrete and
definite, were so vigorously assaulted that they were worsted
by their opponents. The newly elected legislature showed a
triumph of the forces of negation. When that body met, how-
ever, and proceeded to clear the way for action, it was found
that no satisfactory substitute proposition was available. This
31 Bissell to Gillespie, December 22, 1850, Gillespie manuscripts; Chicago
Democrat, January u, 1851; Illinois Journal, November 30, 1850, January 29,
1851.
40 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
situation was relieved when Robert Rantoul of Massachusetts
in behalf of a group of eastern capitalists offered to build the
road and, on condition of a surrender to it of the federal land
grant, to pay the state in return a percentage of the gross
receipts. The offer was regarded as very fair; it was favor-
ably received by the friends of the central road; and Governor
French promptly recommended it to the legislature. An act
of incorporation fixing the share of the state at seven per cent
of the gross revenues was passed almost unanimously and
became law on February io. 32
The builders of the Illinois Central thus undertook to con-
struct a road over twice as long as the largest railway system
of that day, the New York and Erie. The charter allowed the
company four years to complete the main line and six years
for the branches; as a problem in contemporary engineering
this required most careful planning. The organization was
promptly completed, 33 and within a few months a preliminary
survey was under way. A hotbed of agitation, bribery,
and litigation developed along the general line of the Central
where rival points struggled to secure the railroad for
their own particular districts; the survey, however, went
forward on considerations of engineering and administrative
policy.
In regions not directly influenced by the Central system,
attention was centered on securing other railroad facilities.
The project of the Galena and Chicago railroad incorporated
in 1847 was popular with both Chicagoans and residents of
northern Illinois generally, who put it actively in the field
with subscriptions to over a quarter million of stock; in one
day President William B. Ogden of the company secured
$20,000 on the streets of Chicago from farmers who were
selling wheat. Early in 1848 contracts were let and construc-
tion was started on the section from Chicago to Elgin, and
by the spring of 1849 fourteen miles were in operation; the
thirty-five miles to Elgin, however, were not completed until
February i, 1850, when a grand celebration took place. On
32 Illinois Journal, January 22, 1851; Senate Journal, 1851, p. 237, 265, 266.
The act is not printed in the session laws.
33 Schuyler to French, March 24, 1851, French manuscripts.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 41
August i, 1852, the cars made their entrance into Rockford
amid the firing of cannon and ringing of bells, while on the
fourth of September, 1853, the road was opened to Freeport,
125 miles west of Chicago. This was for a time the western
terminus, the Illinois Central being used to cover the remaining
fifty miles to Galena. With the completion of branches to the
Wisconsin line from Elgin and Belvidere, the Galena and
Chicago was ambitious enough to project an air line across
the state to Fulton on the Mississippi ; this was over half com-
pleted by the end of 1853, and by the beginning of 1856 it
went into complete operation furnishing through service as
the shortest line between Chicago and the Mississippi. The
early operations of the road were very extensive and profitable,
with net earnings varying from ten to twenty per cent. Such
earnings in 1849 on ^ ess than twenty miles of road were
$25,000. Dividends of ten per cent and eight per cent were
declared in February and October, 1850. The road soon paid
a higher percentage to stockholders than any road in the union,
with semiannual dividends of from eight to twelve per cent.
Another early Chicago connection was the Aurora branch
or Chicago and Aurora railroad, chartered in 1849. It used
the Galena and Chicago track for thirty-three miles, while the
remaining ten miles down the Fox river valley to Aurora it
completed in 1850. Books were then opened for stock to
continue it forty-three miles farther to Mendota on the pro-
jected Galena branch of the Illinois Central. This was com-
pleted in the fall of 1853.
By this time stable foundations had been laid for the Rock
Island and Chicago, originally the Peru and Rock Island.
Work was commenced in the fall of 1851 ; 34 a year later the
line was opened to Joliet; in February, 1853, the rails were
laid to Ottawa, and the road was hurried westward at a rate
of nearly a mile a day, progressing more rapidly than any
railroad in the state. On February 22, 1854, the completion
of the road was celebrated with pomp and ceremony at Rock
Island, for this made the first continuous connection of the
Great Lakes with the Mississippi. Steamship connections with
St. Louis and St. Paul were immediately established, and a
34 Ottawa Free Trader, October 4, 1851.,
42 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
bridge built across the river to tap the central Iowa
country. 35
During these years the Illinois Central was making rapid
progress. The surveys were completed by the beginning of
1852 and the work was promptly put under contract; a force
of 10,000 laborers prosecuted the work with vigor from the
terminal points toward the center. By the end of 1853, 175
miles of track had been laid; the Chicago branch was opened
to Urbana in midsummer of the following year; on the first
of January, 1855, all the main line and most of the Galena
and Chicago branches were in operation. Connections with
other lines enabled the company to open through passenger
and freight service, although the formal laying of the last rail
and the driving of the last spike did not take place until
September 27, i856. 36 With additional improvements the
Illinois Central became almost immediately the best built and
equipped railroad in the west.
The Springfield and Alton railroad, another north and
south line authorized in February, 1847, began operations in
the middle of 1850. In September, 1852, through trains were
running from Springfield to Alton, where they connected with
fast steamers for St. Louis, making the total distance in four
hours. Before that time an extension to Chicago had been
planned; and the general assembly on June 19, 1852, changed
the name to Chicago and Mississippi Railroad Company. On
October 18, 1853, the road was completed to Normal; and the
first communication by railroad from New York City to the
Mississippi river was established by way of the Chicago and
Rock Island to La Salle, and from there to Normal by the
Illinois Central. Then, in the flowery language of the rail-
road celebration after-dinner orator, the iron horse that sipped
his morning draught from the crystal waters of Lake Michi-
gan could slake his evening thirst upon the banks of the Mis-
sissippi. By October, 1854, with the complete installation of
its own train service, the "Alton" road had opened another
through connection between the Father of Waters and the
35 This bridge became a subject of serious controversy with the federal
government, incited in part by rival St. Louis interests.
86 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, October 2, 1856.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 43
Great Lakes. Before 1860 a railroad extension from Alton
to St. Louis was completed.
The downstate interests were engaged in converting their
own cross-state projects from mere paper schemes into sub-
stantial railroad lines. The neglected Northern Cross line, the
sole railroad remnant of the internal improvement orgy of
^37, was transferred to a private company and became known
either as the Springfield and Meredosia, or Sangamon and
Morgan railroad; in 1853, however, the legislature changed
the name to the Illinois Great Western, and in 1860 it became
a part of the Toledo, Wabash, and Great Western. This road
was overhauled in 1848 and opened for regular passenger
service to Naples in the summer of 1849. For a time energies
were concentrated on securing a federal land grant to aid its
completion across the state. In 1853 the eastern extension
was brought to within a dozen miles of Decatur; the track
was slowly carried forward until in 1857 the Indiana state line
was reached, putting into operation 174 miles of road. The
connection across the state, however, was not completed until
1858.
The Central Military Tract railroad was built in 1854
and formed an extension of the Aurora branch railroad from
their common junction with the Illinois Central at Mendota
to Galesburg where it connected with the Quincy and Gales-
burg branch of the Northern Cross railroad. In 1856 the
Central Military Tract was consolidated with the Chicago,
Burlington, and Quincy railroad, which also secured the North-
ern Cross line from Galesburg to Quincy. The Peoria and
Oquawka railroad, incorporated to carry out the project of a
great central railroad, was slowly carried forward in the
period from 1853 to 1857.
The railroad problem of southern Illinois was complicated
by rival cross-state enterprises. Alton and the backers of
"state policy" continued to fight the St. Louis interests in
their alliance with the rival land speculators, and the advocates
of more southerly routes. The "state policy" forces had held
their own down to 1850, although their opponents could match
their professions of principle. The latter championed as true
liberal "state policy" the privilege of railroao! construction
44 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
for every part of the state where the people were willing to
undertake the enterprise and supply the capital. 37 Men like
Governor French, Governor Matteson, Ben Bond, Bissell, and
Koerner zealously pleaded for a free field for all enterprises;
and Douglas was induced to go on record as in favor of a free
field for cross-state lines. 38 The rival factions accordingly
marshalled their forces in railroad conventions. The contest
became so keen that even political issues were at times subord-
inated to the railroad question; a bipartisan combination at
Alton supported " state policy " legislative candidates while
elsewhere politics were sacrificed to the hopes of the backers of
the roads.
The "railroad war" continued to be waged in each suc-
cessive session of the legislature. Alton interests back of the
Terre Haute and Alton were especially zealous in their hos-
tility toward the Atlantic and Mississippi line, as it prepared
for an aggressive campaign under the presidency of Colonel
John Brough. In spite of a powerful backing, however,
Brough's road repeatedly met with defeat even after the
Ohio and Mississippi railroad from Vincennes to Illinoistown
secured legislative sanction on February 12, 1851. In 1853
the assembly granted charters for enterprises totalling several
thousand miles of railroad, but rejected the bill for the
"Brough road" and tabled a resolution in favor of a general
railroad law. 39 The authorization of the Vincennes road
placed an additional obstacle in the way of the Atlantic and
Mississippi; although it had previously rallied the liberal
policy forces on the basis of the sectional resentment of Egypt
to northern selfishness, the Vincennes backers now came to
look upon the "Brough road" as a possible competitor for
financial support.
37 Belleville Advocate, January 12, 1853.
38 Banks to French, January 10, 1850, Manly to French, August 28, 1851,
French manuscripts; Douglas to Manly, December 28, 1850, Illinois State
Register, January 16, 1851.
39 It was even proposed by Joseph Gillespie that in return for a payment
of one per cent of their gross earnings, the railroads already chartered should be
given a virtual monopoly under state supervision, their consent being necessary
to any charters for new roads running within twenty-five miles of any road
already incorporated; all the territory between the Terre Haute and Alton and
the Ohio and Mississippi roads was to be closed to east and west roads. Illinois
State Register, February 3, 10, 1853,
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 45
By the fall of 1853, however, after the Ohio and Missis-
sippi had sold its bonds and was on a firm financial footing;
the " Brough road" supporters decided that the time was ripe
to press their project by a combined opposition against "the
narrow contracted policy of Alton." They immediately began
an active campaign for an extra session as confident of the
support of Governor Matteson as they had been of that of
Governor French. 40 Breese, McClernand, Reynolds, Logan,
Casey, and Morrison were active in organizing the forces that
favored the call. At the close of a vigorous newspaper fight
between northern and southern Illinois journals, an extra ses-
sion convention was held at Salem on November 25, 1853,
which, with twenty-four counties represented, proved the reality
of the demand. Governor Matteson responded in January
with his proclamation. Downstate interests began their cam-
paign for a liberal railroad policy and were finally able to
secure the charter for which its supporters, including two
governors of the state, had been laboring for over five years.
St. Louis gave the Illinois legislature a festival in honor of
the passage of the bill that marked the end of the great Illinois
railroad war.
A survey in retrospect revealed the fact that for four years
countless controversies over applications for special railroad
charters had wrecked the dispatch of legislative business. 41
"State policy" was therefore shelved even by its advocates
as having fulfilled its purpose and become an obstacle in the
way of progress.
The construction of two of the three southern lateral lines
was completed in the latter half of the decade. The Terre
Haute and Alton was organized for active work in 1850, but
the road was not built until the period from 1853 to the end
of 1855. Before it was completed, however, it secured a col-
lateral branch to Illinoistown. This direct connection with St.
Louis, like that of the Chicago and Alton, robbed Alton of
the special advantage that her backers had expected to enjoy
as a railroad terminus; they had to be content with the posi-
40 Belleville Advocate, September 28, 1853. Lieutenant Governor Koerner
went on record as in favor of the special session. Koerner, Memoirs, i : 607-608 ;
Chicago Daily Democratic Press, October 28, 1853.
id., January 17, 1855; Illinois Journal, January 3, 1855.
46 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
tion of an important way station, while the St. Louis interests
chuckled over the advantages that accrued to their city.
The Ohio and Mississippi road was opened from Illinois-
town to Vincennes in July, 1855, although the connection with
Cincinnati was not completed until nearly two years later. This
road traversed a rich belt of country and brought important
advantages to St. Louis as a direct east and west line of com-
munication. It failed, however, to draw from Chicago the
trade that was now accustomed to go east by the lake route.
After energy had been expended in securing the charter for the
Terre Haute and Illinoistown line, this project fell through
and was not taken up again until 1865; St. Louis was thus
deprived of another important eastern connection.
Belleville had contributed in Gustave Koerner, John Rey-
nolds, and Don Morrison some of the most enthusiastic backers
of both the Ohio and Mississippi, and Mississippi and Atlantic
lines. They expected that their city would be made a station
on both lines. The first disappointment came when the Ohio
and Mississippi line decided, because of the land holdings of
St. Louis investors and of Illinois speculators, 42 to pass .four
miles to the north of Belleville; bitterly did the Belleville lead-
ers denounce the land sharks and speculators in bounty land
warrants and tax titles. In their chagrin they hit upon the
scheme of building a road to Illinoistown, which they were able
successfully to execute by the fall of 1854, after which they
carried a northern extension to Alton there to connect with the
Alton and Terre Haute. This saved them from excessive
disappointment over being left off the line of the road from
Terre Haute and over the later failure of that project.
At the end of 1850, the completed portions of the North-
ern Cross line and of the Galena and Chicago Union railroad
had given the state only a little over one hundred miles of
railroad, yet in the first six years of the decade Illinois built
a larger mileage than any other state in the union. With 2,235
miles of track it outranked all the states of the middle west. 43
By 1860 with important eastern connections running into Chi-
42 Including even Don Morrison. Belleville Advocate, June 30, 1852;
Koerner, Memoirs, 1:565, 586, 587.
* 3 Urbana Union, February 19, 1857,
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 47
cago, with the Chicago and Milwaukee (1855), and with
the Chicago and Northwestern railroad systems tapping the
state of Wisconsin at different points, Illinois was ade-
quately provided with railroad communication with the outside
world.
Yet the story of Illinois railroad development in the fifties
is not finished without a mention of the numerous projects
dreamed of by those who wished to have a hand in networking
the state with railroad lines, for nowhere perhaps did the rail-
road fever rage more violently than in the state of Illinois. It
seemed that the people would not be content until a railroad
was located on every four miles of the state. Thousands of
miles of road were authorized by the general assembly that
never passed the state of paper projects; others were begun
only to collapse of their own weight, worthy as well as merely
ambitious enterprises going to ruin with the rest. At the begin-
ning of 1851, the legislature petitioned congress for federal
aid in behalf of the Alton and Mt. Carmel line provided for
in the internal improvement act of 1837 ; but by the end of the
year a lone Irishman working under the direction of General
William H. Pickering, its indefatigable proprietor, was mak-
ing the last effort to rescue this important project from
oblivion. 44
A tremendous array of forces gave to Illinois its railroads
and railroad schemes. Local investors and land speculators
conceived an enterprise and rallied the support of the com-
munity; farms were mortgaged to assist in the accumulation of
capital; counties and municipalities voted to subscribe stock.
In addition, the aid of eastern capitalists was called in. But
such capital, even in the case of one of the more promising
enterprises, was supplied only when special privileges were con-
ferred upon the easterners who took every advantage of the
Illinoisians. " Swarms of hungry cormorants " clamoring for
special legislation besieged the state capitol. It was said that
the bills pressed by these lobbyists "were prepared in New
York, and were first canvassed by Wall street men before they
44 Laws of 1851, p. 204; Allen to French, December 9, 1851, French manu-
scripts; a manuscript note to Pickering by Joseph Gillespie, 1879, is appended
to a letter from Pickering to Gillespie, July 20, 1860, Chicago Historical Society
manuscripts.
48 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
were sent to Springfield to secure legislative endorsement." 45
At times western investors were refused directors to represent
their interests. In 1853 rumors circulated of a corruption fund
of $80,000 to defeat the Mississippi and Atlantic railroad.
Only the general enthusiasm for railroad development pre-
vented a strong reaction in line with democratic prejudices
against corporations and corporation influence. 46
The service furnished by these newly built railroads varied
according to circumstances. Most of them were constructed
to meet a long felt want; the heavy freight and passenger
traffic that immediately began often taxed the roads to their
utmost capacities. When earnings ran as high as sixteen per
cent roads like the Galena and Chicago were able to add new
accommodations in response to the growing demands. All
lines ran daily freight and passenger trains in each direction
and in instances the time-table gave the traveler a wide range
of choice. Good time was made by passenger trains; thirty
miles an hour was a common speed, and Chicago and Alton
trains were able to average twenty-two miles and rarely vary
ten minutes from schedule. When the traveler, accustomed to
a ride of three days and nights from Chicago to Springfield
in Fink and Company's stages, made the trip by rail in twelve
hours, it seemed "more like a sketch from some part of the
Arabian Nights, than a matter of stern reality." 47 The ele-
ment of luxury in travel was introduced into Illinois with the
appearance of the sleeping coach on the Illinois Central line.
Rates were very reasonable; while varying greatly passenger
fares in most cases did not exceed three cents a mile. During
the later fifties the Galena and Chicago and the Northwestern
roads competed for traffic between Chicago and Rockford and
both cut the passenger fares to one dollar. 48 Accidents, how-
ever, were frightfully common at the start especially because of
45 Chicago Dally Democratic Press clipped in Illinois State Register,
August 4, 1853.
46 Belleville Advocate, March 30, 1853; Chicago Daily Democratic Press
clipped in Alton Courier, April 12, 1853. As it was, a sober vote of warning
came from papers like the Chicago Daily Democratic Press, Illinois State
Register, July 28, 1853, and others.
47 Alton Courier, June 3, 1853, February 22, 1854.
48 Chicago Democrat, April 2, 1853; Rockford Republican, December i, 1859;
Rockford Register, January 7, 1860.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 49
the want of fences along the right of way to keep out the
cattle. 49
The railroads rendered obsolete the prevailing methods of
handling the mails. Very few of the 86 1 post offices located in
Illinois in 1850 enjoyed regular daily mail service. Trans-
ported by the stage lines over unimproved and often impass-
able roads, the mails suffered serious delays from schedule as
a result of washed out bridges and flooded roads. River mails
were next adopted and worked a considerable improvement for
the regions able to take advantage of them. But the railroad
made possible the general and prompt transmission of the
mails at all seasons. It took time, however, to perfect arrange-
ments; in 1853 a traveler from New York could carry the city
papers to Alton and deliver them four days in advance of the
mails. 50 In a few years, however, a letter from New Orleans
could be delivered in Chicago within three days.
The coming of the railroads hastened the forces that were
revolutionizing the prevailing social and economic practices
of the day. The railroads brought a great influx of population,
first of laborers to participate in railway construction and later
of immigrant passengers. The consequent heavy demand for
both the food and other products of the state improved the
local market. Reduction in the cost of transportation coupled
with the new element of reliability, automatically increased the
producer's share in the market prices of his crops. Prices in
the east and west were now more nearly equalized.
The whole field of agriculture experienced a remarkable
stimulus. 51 The new inducements to immigration attracted
many men of means who often came to Illinois demanding
improved lands; as a result farm values experienced a rapid
rise of almost fifty per cent. The new availability of large
tracts of unimproved lands offered tempting fields for land
speculation; many a fortune was made on a gambler's risk of
a successful guess of adequate railroad communications for the
49 The Chicago and Alton superintendent issued an order that section
masters pass over their respective sections in hand cars within an hour of train
time and drive off any cattle that might be on the track. Illinois State Register,
November 10, 1853.
60 Alton Courier, August i, 1853.
51 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 27:759.
50 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
land warrant locations. Methods of getting stock to market
were improved; special stock-train service was furnished by
certain roads at a great saving. Perishable fruits and vege-
tables now found a wide market which gave added attractions
to horticulture; railroad communication placed the tomatoes
and berries of southern Illinois upon Chicago dinner tables
weeks before the home crops were harvested.
In the towns and cities changes took place which paralleled
those of rural life. Merchants found new demands for their
goods both from the railroad workers and from the farmers
who found it easier in every sense to keep in touch with the
distributing centers. Manufacturing experienced a remarkable
stimulus with the advent of the railroads ; both the raw material
and the markets were brought nearer the factory. The rail-
road further rendered accessible the inexhaustible supplies of
mineral wealth with which Illinois was blessed. The railroads
soon discovered that coal burning locomotives were far more
economical than those that used wood ; by the end of the decade,
the Illinois Central began to adopt the former type. 52 The
process of supplying the railroads with coal promised to open
up a new mining industry of equal importance to the manufac-
turing establishments and to the households of the timberless
state. Thus it was that many a sleepy town or village of log
huts and shanties was aroused and converted into a bustling
city.
Towns sprang up with mushroom rapidity along the rail-
road lines that intersected the open prairies. In 1854, West
Urbana was a depot on the Illinois Central; in another year
it was a hamlet of a hundred houses with four or five hun-
dred inhabitants, while three hundred buildings were in process
of erection, including "two large hotels, six stores, a large
furniture ware-house, four or five lumber yards, and a large
ware-house for forwarding purposes," besides a Presbyterian
church and a large school house costing some $4,ooo. 53 A
census taken sixteen months later revealed a population of
over 1,200. In 1861 this was the thriving town of Champaign
with a separate corporate existence. A little to the south at
82 Qulncy Whig, April 16, 1858; Chicago Democrat, January 24, 1859.
53 Ibid., May 5, 1855.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS 51
the junction of the Central and Alton and Terre Haute rail-
road, the town of Mattoon sprang up almost overnight; in
April there was not a sign of human life, by August there was
"a large hotel," with another in process of erection, a post
office, a dry goods store, and two groceries to supply a rapidly
increasing population. 54 The hamlet of Earlville, thirty-five
miles west of Aurora on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy
railroad, in a short time grew from a settlement of six or eight
dwellings, a store, blacksmith shop, and a tavern into a place
of a thousand inhabitants, with over a score of stores, three
public houses, and four church organizations. Favorably situ-
ated older settlements received similar benefits ; Hillsboro and
Carlinville were instances of towns that rapidly forged ahead
when provided with railroad connections. Immigration poured
in from every direction, merchants did a thriving business,
the streets were often impassable because of the presence of
farmers' teams. 55
The greatest advantages, however, were derived by the
termini of the roads, particularly Chicago, Alton, and St.
Louis. In 1856 thirteen railroads centered in or were con-
nected with Chicago which was served by 104 trains daily.
Alton had dreamed of superseding St. Louis as a western
metropolis; and in the economic domination of central and
southern Illinois, a sharp competition for control of the field
ensued. 56 In the summer of 1848 St. Louis tried to improve
her harbor facilities by altering the channel of the Mississippi
river with a dyke that would compel it to flow on the west side
of Bloody Island. As this threatened to divert the channel
away from the Illinois shore, Governor French was induced
to exercise his authority to prevent the work; he accordingly
authorized the sheriff of St. Clair county to use military force
or a civil posse to enforce an injunction against the St. Louis
authorities. The supreme court of Illinois sustained the gov-
ernor in the dyke controversy, though later a compromise
54 Chicago Weekly Democrat, September i, 1855; Presbytery Reporter,
4: 327-328.
55 Aurora Guardian, December 9, 1853 ; Carlinville Statesman, July 8, 1852,
clipped in Illinois State Register, July 15, 1852; Hillsboro Mirror clipped in
ibid., March 31, 1853.
56 Review of the Commerce of Chicago, 31; Alton Courier, September 18,
1852, April 4, 1853.
52 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
arrangement permitted the work to be completed. 57 While
Alton and St. Louis continued their squabbles over the Ohio
and Mississippi and over the " Brough railroad," other rail-
roads were being constructed, and these cities suffered greater
and greater losses to the metropolis on the lake.
Not Alton, but Chicago the key to the railroad system
of the northwest was to succeed to the economic leadership
of St. Louis. Railroads reenforced the canal and even com-
peted with it for the lighter freights. 58 When the rail con-
nections with Rock Island and Peoria were completed, the
process of making the Illinois valley tributary to Chicago
was rounded out. The Chicago and Galena diverted from
St. Louis and the Mississippi route the lead traffic and the agri-
cultural products trade of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and northern
Iowa as well as of northwestern Illinois. The Illinois Central
brought forward to Chicago quantities of products from cen-
tral Illinois, though it carried enough to Cairo to threaten to
build up another rival to St. Louis at the southern extremity
of the state. 59 At the beginning of the decade with five-eighths
of the agricultural trade of St. Louis drawn from Illinois and
with Illinoisians taking in return nearly three-fourths of the
merchandise sold in St. Louis, the Missouri legislature was
able to levy a tax of $4.50 on every $1,000 worth of foreign
products and merchandise sold in that state and on articles
purchased by outsiders; in the closing years St. Louis bent all
her energies toward saving what remnants she could from the
grasp of Chicago. 60
With Chicago as the hub of a vast transportation system,
Illinois promised to become the great railroad center as it
was the geographical center of the nation. Prophets felt little
boldness in predicting a leading role in the future for Illinois. 61
57 Reynolds to French, June 17, 1848, Reynolds et al. to French, June 23,
1848, Reynolds, Koerner, P. Fouke, William H. Underwood et al. to French,
July 12, 1852, French manuscripts. -Correspondence covering every side of the
dyke controversy may be found in this collection.
68 See E. S. Prescott to W. H. Swift, January 30, 1851, Swift manuscripts.
59 St. Louis Republican clipped in Illinois State Register, May 8, 1851; St.
Louis Intelligencer in ibid., May 22, 1851 ; see also DeBoiv's Review, 24:212.
60 Illinois State Register, October 30, 1849, January 17, 1850; Belleville
Advocate, November 29, 1849.
61 Lee, "Transportation: A Factor in the Development of Northern Illinois
previous to 1860," Illinois State Historical Society, Journal, 10: 17-85.
III. AGITATION AND COMPROMISE, 1848-1852
IN THE midst of the excitement of a successful war, with
the distractions attendant upon a heated agitation of the
slavery question, Illinois in 1848 entered upon a new era in
her political development. Forces of more recent origin, how-
ever, were relegated to the background while old party align-
ment and orthodox political issues were revived in the discussion
of candidates for the presidential office. In the country at
large, as well as in Illinois, all omens pointed to the success
of the democratic party, which, having generously fed the
people's voracious appetite for expansion, had a claim to grati-
tude not to be matched by their empty-handed opponents.
Party leaders for a long time would admit an uncertainty
only as to who should represent the democracy in receiving
from the tribunal of public opinion a formal recognition of
the party's valued services.
Whig leaders, in desperation, consequently began to cast
about for the most effective means of recovering their recent
losses. "All the elements of party strife will bubble in the
caldron," warned Orlando B. Ficklin, congressman from the
third district. "War, pestilence, and famine, slavery & free-
dom, military and civil claims, will each and all lend their
influence to the strife of '48." 1 The democrats, shaken in
their confidence of victory, set about to rally their full strength
about their strongest candidates. President Polk, though the
official party leader in those days of storm and stress, was not
the authoritative embodiment of democratic principles : there
was little reason why he should be continued in the executive
office in the face of the natural ambitions of party chiefs like
Lewis Cass and James Buchanan. He had seriously offended
many elements in the northern states by his silence on land
reform and by his veto of the river and harbor bill as well as
1 Ficklin to French, January 6, 1848, French manuscripts.
53
54 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
by his subserviency to the south. 2 Nevertheless, since he had
not allowed himself to become entangled in the Wilmot proviso
issue, he could still run a fair race. If Cass and Buchanan
should wear each other out, those who opposed Folk's nomi-
nation feared that he might forget his declared lack of ambition
for reelection and avail himself of the opportunity to come up
from behind as a compromise candidate; Congressman " Long
John" Wentworth thought he detected a skillful Polk elec-
tioneering campaign on the part of Springfield politicians. 3
Wentworth himself advocated Douglas as a representative of
the youthful spirit of the west which alone could carry the
party to victory. But " Long John's " aggressive personality
had created strong enemies within the party, who seem to have
gradually gained the ear of even the cautious Governor French,
and they combined with the Springfield machine politicians,
who, disgusted by Wentworth's antislavery activities, were
determined to block his control at all hazards.
Soon a contest developed in which the two factions meas-
ured their strength against each other. The point at issue
was the manner of selecting delegates to the national conven-
tion. Wentworth wanted to have them elected by conventions
in each judicial circuit, while the members of the state machine
insisted on a state convention. The latter would secure a har-
monious, unified delegation to represent the state on the prin-
ciple of majority control; the district scheme, on the other
hand, recognized a situation which clearly existed: the demo-
crats of the state were radically divided on many questions
and each district would in this way have the right of self-
determination. 4 "We Barnburners believe in free opinion,
free speech & free discussion as well as free labor and free
soil," said Wentworth. 5 In the northern section of the state
democrats were strongly devoted to the Jeffersonian slavery
restriction policy initiated in 1787; they declared frankly in
favor of " free soil once, free soil forever," 6 and for river
2 Congressional Globe, 29 congress, i session, 1181.
8 Wentworth to French, March 5, April 13, 1848, French manuscripts.
4 Chicago Democrat, January 31, 1848 ; Wentworth to French, March 5,
1848, French manuscripts.
5 Wentworth to French, April 13, 1848, ibid.
6 Chicago Democrat, April 18, 1848.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 55
and harbor improvements without qualification. As one left
the northern region, however, for the middle and southern
counties, increasing democratic hostility to all these proposi-
tions appeared.
Wentworth and his following succeeded in controlling the
local party organizations in the vicinity of Chicago but failed
to secure the recognition of his principle of "live and let live,"
worked out through district conventions. The state convention,
accordingly, met on April 24 and 25 to perform the work of
selecting delegates to Baltimore, as well as to place a state
ticket and an electoral ticket in the field. The convention
expressed a decided preference for General Cass but did not
formally instruct the delegation to support him. The resolu-
tions adopted condemned all intemperate discussion and unnec-
essary agitation of the slavery question and ignored other
issues over which democrats differed. The state ticket sched-
uled Augustus C. French for reelection as governor and
William McMurty for lieutenant governor. 7 The state plat-
form was not at all satisfactory to antislavery democrats, and
the national convention a month later, by nominating Lewis
Cass on a platform silent as to slavery, added to their unrest.
Democratic dissensions gave little encouragement to the
whigs, who faced even more serious embarrassment They,
too, were divided on the slavery issue. There were " con-
science whigs" or " wooly-heads," who rallied to the Wilmot
proviso standard; but in the state, as in the nation, they were
outnumbered by those who would avoid new and distracting
issues. The whig party, moreover, already suffering from
regularity of defeat, had further declined in prestige as a result
of its opposition to the Mexican War and to territorial
expansion.
Under these circumstances it was not easy to map out a
program. Orthodox whigs felt that a consistent adherence to
party principles and existing leadership would carry the day;
these were Henry Clay men who hoped that the war had so
weakened the democracy that Clay could easily swing the win-
ning vote in 1848. Others felt that a policy of opportunism
under a standard bearer who possessed real "availability"
7 Illinois State Register, April 28, 1848.
56 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
was the only course to pursue. The brilliant exploits of
Generals Taylor and Scott had given them a popularity that
promised an assured response to their leadership. Early in
1847, therefore, promptly after the battle of Buena Vista,
papers like the Quincy Whig and the Morgan Journal hoisted
the name of General Taylor as a candidate for the presidency.
Lincoln was one of the active group of Taylor congressmen
who upheld the general's cause at the national capital.
General Taylor had no real political interests or beliefs;
party lines had thus far concerned him but little, and there
had already arisen an increasing nonpartisan demand for his
nomination. Here was a candidate to offer the nation. " Old
Zach" was the hero of the Mexican War; hampered as he
had been by official democratic jealousy, he was the man to
wipe out the whig stigma of opposition to a popular war. A
struggle was soon under way between availability, as repre-
sented by Taylor, and orthodoxy, as identified with Clay; the
result was a Taylor victory and a grave disappointment for
Clay supporters.
Whig energy in Illinois was directed exclusively toward the
national convention; after the ticket of Taylor and Fillmore
was launched in June, it was discovered that no preparations
had been made to contest the state election. This reflected
the prevailing disorganization; the Illinois Journal frankly
admitted that the party had no hope of carrying the state
election in August, and that a defeat would detract from whig
strength in the November election. 8 On the other hand, many
whigs objected to letting the state election go by default because
it would keep them from ascertaining the actual strength of
the party; accordingly the Quincy Whig and other papers
hoisted the names of Pierre Menard for governor and J. L. D.
Morrison for lieutenant governor. 9
The administration of Governor French had been emi-
nently satisfactory to all impartial men of the state. He had
displayed no unfair partisanship, with the result that even
many whigs desired his reelection. 10 He had, moreover, kept
8 Illinois Journal, June 19, 1848.
8 Quincy Whig, June 6, 1848.
10 Turner to French, no date, 1848, French manuscripts.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 57
fairly clear of the factionalism that had prevailed in his own
party. Even John Wentworth, the ubiquitous critic, approved
the absence of official dictation and pointed to the unwonted
harmony in the ranks of the state democracy as justification
of French's reelection. 11 When finally the cry of " Springfield
clique " was raised, it seems to have referred to the Illinois
State Register following rather than to the state administra-
tion. For all these reasons, the opposition to the French state
ticket was very feeble and the election in August went off very
quietly.
The newly elected legislature was strongly democratic;
anti-war whiggery proved a millstone for the whig legislative
triumvirate, Stephen T. Logan, Isaac Williams, and William
Thomas, who sank in political waters normally favorable for
a plunge. 12 The complexion of the Illinois congressional dele-
gation was unchanged, Edward D. Baker being elected as the
lone whig member. Thomas L. Harris, a democrat, was
elected to Lincoln's seat in a close contest; William H. Bissell
without opposition replaced Robert Smith in the first; John A.
McClernand, Wentworth, and William A. Richardson were
all reelected over their opponents, with Timothy R. Young in
the third district.
The atmosphere having thus been cleared, all energies
were thrown into the presidential canvass. The whig leaders
set out to develop a dramatic hero worship of General Taylor,
the "people's candidate." The spirit of 1840 was revived in
their ranks. Processions, mass meetings, and barbecues became
the order of the day. The rank and file were urged to keep
up the "grape" that the hero of Buena Vista, the general
who " never surrenders," might bring the enemy to his knees. 13
The disaffection of Clay whigs gradually subsided and termi-
nated when Clay formally declined to allow his name to be
used independently. Little was said of concrete whig prin-
ciples. The bank issue was declared obsolete; since the land
warrants of Mexican War veterans would absorb the public
domain for years to come, there would be no proceeds of the
11 Wentworth to French, December 19, 1847, April 13, 1848, French manu-
scripts.
12 Illinois State Register, August 18, 25, 1848.
13 Beardstoivn Gazette, September 13, 1848.
58 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
public land for distribution; with the heavy demands created
by war debt, the tariff could no longer be a party matter. The
great and vital issue, therefore, was the question whether the
people or one man should rule. In the past the vetoes of
democratic presidents had thwarted the public will; had not
Polk in this way defeated a crying need for river and harbor
improvement? 14
The democrats replied by challenging the meager qualifi-
cations of the whig candidate for political preferment. Wilmot
provisoists were reminded of the fallacy of voting for a planter
and slaveholder. The German and Irish were played upon by
the customary charge of whig hostility to foreigners; Taylor,
it was claimed, was in league with the nativists. 15
In counter attacks the whigs ridiculed the attempt of the
democrats to write General Cass into a military hero. Abra-
ham Lincoln from the floor of the house of representatives
made a burlesque of his own military exploits and those of
General Cass, drolly suggesting that neither had seriously
qualified for the presidency on that score. 16 Cass's position
was declared to be no more satisfactory on the slavery ques-
tion. Originally inclined toward the Wilmot proviso doctrine
he had found it expedient to expound in his canvass a non-
committal doctrine of popular sovereignty for the territories,
a doctrine which was promptly attacked as a Janus-faced appeal
to both antislavery and proslavery democrats. The genuine-
ness of his democracy was challenged by referring to a state-
ment in which he was alleged to have favored "whipping and
selling poor white men and stubborn servants." 17
With the increasing seriousness of the sectional contro-
versy, it became evident that the restless antislavery elements
would hold the balance of power. There was widespread dis-
content with both national parties for their consistent evasion
of the slavery issue; both in their national conventions had
just rejected propositions to check the extension of slavery's
domain. In New York, where an explosion had been threat-
ening for some time, the antislavery democrats, or "barn-
14 Beardstoiun Gazette, October 4, n, November i, 1848.
15 Chicago Democrat, June 22, 1848.
16 Works of Abraham Lincoln, 2: 104.
17 Illinois Journal, September 16, 1848.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 59
burners," were so disgusted with the proceedings of the
national convention that they launched an independent move-
ment, summoning all antislavery forces to meet in convention
to agree upon common cause. The result was the organiza-
tion of the free soil or free democratic party at Buffalo on the
ninth of August, 1848.
Illinois delegates led by Owen Lovejoy, Isaac N. Arnold,
C. D. Wells, Samuel J. Lowe, C. Sedgwick, and Charles V.
Dyer, attended this convention but took no conspicuous part
in the proceedings. 18 Immediately, therefore, the question
arose as to whether or not the movement would take root in
Illinois, where the weak and despised liberty party polled
only 4,000 votes. 19 The "barnburner" movement, however,
quickly gathered strength. An Illinois free soil convention,
with sixteen counties represented, assembled at Ottawa on
August 29; they prepared an electoral ticket of their own
and made ready to take an active part in the canvass. 20 Five
or six new papers were started to advocate the election of
the free soil candidates, Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis
Adams. 21
Shrewd political prophets predicted a free soil vote of
20,000 in Illinois. Managers of both old parties were deeply
concerned over the inroads that were being made into their
ranks: which would suffer most heavily? 22 Democrats were
frightened to see some of their best men, like Norman B. Judd,
Dr. Daniel Brainard, Isaac N. Arnold, Mahlon D. Ogden,
and Joseph O. Glover bolt the Baltimore nominations to go
for Van Buren. 23 When Wentworth was renominated by a
district convention controlled by "barnburners" which refused
18 Gem of the Prairie, August 12, 1848 ; cf. Smith, The Liberty and Free
Soil Parties in the Northwest, 142.
19 Illinois Journal, September 6, 1848. This was the congressional vote of
1848, just the size of Birney's vote in 1844. Owen Lovejoy polled 3,130 votes in
the Chicago district.
20 Illinois State Register, September 8, 1848; Beardstown Gazette, Sep-
tember 13, 1848.
21 Prospectus of Alton Monitor in Shurtleff College scrapbook. A free
soil league at Chicago fitted up a club with a reading room and displayed
considerable activity. Chicago Democrat, September 8, 1848.
22 Quincy Whig, September 5, October 10, 24, 1848 ; Illinois State Register,
September 15, 1848.
23 Reddick to French, July 12, 1848, French manuscripts; Joliet Signal,
October 16, 1848; Rockford Forum, October 24, 1848.
60 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
to sustain the national ticket, 24 it was rumored that he, too,
had bolted the Baltimore nominations. Wentworth at once
replied, however, that since he believed in making his objec-
tions before a convention and not afterwards, he had never
even considered bolting; he also declared that he preferred
Cass to Taylor on the slavery question. 25 Under democratic
representation that David Wilmot and all true Wilmot proviso
men were supporting Cass and that Van Buren stood no chance
of election, former democrats like David Kennison of Chicago,
the 1 1 2-year-old survivor of the Boston tea party, gave up
their free soil predilections to sustain Cass. 26
Whigs reversed the argument to favor their candidates:
Van Buren was an ancient ally of slavery; every vote given
by a whig to Van Buren was half a vote given to Cass. "The
abolition party under the cloak of Van Burenism," they de-
clared, " are attempting to play the same game " that defeated
Clay in i844; 27 the free soil question "is a cardinal prin-
ciple of the Whig party." 28 Abraham Lincoln, campaigning
in behalf of General Taylor, stressed these points in indicating
the policy and duty of all anti-extensionists. Many old liberty
party men, it was boldly suggested, " prefer Gen. Taylor to
Van Buren believing him sounder and entitled to more
confidence on the free soil question, than the Buffalo conven-
tion." 29
These paradoxical and unconvincing arguments reflected
the fears of party politicians as to the outcome of the election.
Cheered by the encouraging results of the October elections
in Pennsylvania, whigs counted the chances of carrying Illinois.
Several items were listed in their favor; a hostile Mormon
vote of 3,000 had been withdrawn from the state, the "barn-
burners " were expected to carry off thousands from Cass, while
his position on river and harbor improvement and other issues
would cause further democratic losses. 30 Even the least san-
guine democrats, however, relied upon being able to hold their
24 Galloway to French, June 9, 1848, French manuscripts.
23 Wentworth to French, June 23, 1848, ibid.
26 Chicago Democrat, November 6, 1848.
27 Aurora Beacon, September 27, 1848.
28 Beardstown Gazette, November i, 1848.
29 Quincy Whig, October 31, 1848.
30 Ibid., August 15, 1848; Aurora Beacon, September 13, 1848.
Free-Soil (Van Buren)
more than 5%
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 61
existing strength and upon using a normal democratic majority
to carry the state.
The returns showed that Taylor had carried the nation.
The whigs of Springfield celebrated this victory with bonfires,
cannon, a torchlight celebration, and an illumination of whig
residences and places of business. Nevertheless, in the state
the democrats had been correct in their calculations. Cass
was given a plurality of 3,099 less by 9,000 than that for
Polk four years before. Both parties suffered heavy losses
to the free soil movement, which netted 15,702 votes. In the
vicinity of Chicago the Van Buren vote was especially heavy;
a free soil plurality was returned in the city and in Cook and
seven adjacent counties, besides many other single precincts.
This was largely at democratic expense, the result, said Went-
worth, of Cass' announcement, at the dictation of Georgia
politicians, of the doctrine of popular sovereignty. 31
The logical result of the campaign that had just closed
was a demand for concrete and tangible evidence of the much
heralded devotion of both old parties to the principle of the
Wilmot proviso. The free soil whigs promptly undertook to
place the legislature on record in this matter. A drastic whig
proviso resolution, however, was rejected in the house by a
party vote, only a dozen democrats voting with the whig dele-
gation. A long debate began on the Wilmot proviso and
kindred propositions. Several resolutions were discussed;
finally a mild resolution offered by Senator Ames was adopted
in the senate by a vote of fifteen to ten. The house accepted
the joint resolution and it was spread on the record. 32 It was
voted, however, that it was not a resolution of instruction
relating to any specific proposition then before congress; 33
accordingly Douglas, despite the clamors of the whig press at
this " rank federalism," quietly ignored it.
It was the task of this legislature to elect a successor to
Senator Sidney Breese. The whigs were clearly out of the
race and democratic sentiment was divided between Breese and
31 Hereafter, he urged, " let the North stand firm and she will compel
southern men to announce themselves against slavery extension in order to get
northern votes." Chicago Democrat, November 20, 1848.
32 / Laiui of 1849, p. 234.
33 Quincy Whig, January 16, 1849.
62 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
General Shields. Breese was an experienced legislator but not
a statesman of eminence; Shields laid claim to neither quali-
fication but had powerful personal friends, popularity as an
Irish champion of liberty, and the reputation of a military hero
in the Mexican War. Breese was the favorite of the conserva-
tive Egyptian democracy and found favor with the national
administration at Washington; Shields was popular with
Wilmot provisoists and with advocates of river and harbor
improvement in the northern portion of the state. 34 As a
result, this immigrant from the Emerald Isle, still ready, when
Ireland should prepare to strike for liberty, to aid in the
redemption of his native land, secured the nomination in the
democratic caucus and was promptly elected by the legislature.
General Shields presented his credentials- to the special
executive session of the senate following Taylor's inaugura-
tion. His eligibility was promptly challenged on the score of
his inability to meet the constitutional requirement of nine
years of citizenship. It was recognized at once that the chal-
lenge had been made in behalf of Sidney Breese, his unsuccess-
ful and disappointed rival; 35 but since he actually lacked a few
months of fulfilling the requirement, the senate was compelled
to reject him as ineligible. The democratic party in Illinois
was racked by the controversy; both Breese and Shields seemed
to have worn each other out, but no strong neutral candidate
was available to take the place.
Governor French was in no sense disposed to play the part
of arbiter in this dispute. Finding himself in a tight place,
pressed by the two rivals on the one hand and on the other
by compromise candidates, he held, in opposition to the opinion
of Douglas, that as no election had taken place, he had no
power to appoint. 36 He therefore called a special session of
the legislature to select a senator.
By this time democratic politics had become hopelessly
34 Rockford Forum, January 17, 24, 1849; Qu'incy Whig, January 30, 1849.
35 Shields to French, March 17, 1849, French manuscripts. A heated cor-
respondence took place between the two leaders.
36 Douglas to French, May 16, Douglas to Lanphier and Walker, August 13,
Illinois State Register, August 30, 1849; French to Manly, June 8, ibid., June
21, 1849. Robert Smith and Thomas J. Turner also offered themselves as can-
didates for the appointment. Robert Smith to French, March 9, 1849, Turner
to French, May 17, 1849, French manuscripts.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 63
entangled. The friends of John A. McClernand, of lower
Egypt, put him forward as a compromise candidate on the
ground that the two rivals had worn each other out; they
welcomed the idea of a special session as favorable to his
ambition. 37 Advocates of special legislation requested the
governor to include their schemes in his proclamation summon-
ing the legislators to Springfield. Free soilers at first feared
the danger of having their Wilmot proviso instructions with-
drawn; later they made their plans to have them formally
renewed. 38 The sectional division of the state over railroad
development served as a leading line of cleavage between the
advocates and opponents of a called session. When in October
the session finally convened a hot contest between Breese,
Shields, and McClernand took place in the democratic caucus.
Shields was able to draw upon McClernand's following and
win out on the twenty-first ballot; whereupon his election was
formally accomplished in joint session. 39
The attention of the Illinoisians was now drawn from these
petty factional disturbances to the lowering cloud on the hori-
zon threatening to deluge the nation in the flood tide of dis-
union. North and south had grown more and more defiant in
their intention to stand by their respective views on the slavery
question, the north to prevent the spread of the hated insti-
tution to another inch of soil already consecrated to freedom,
and the south to enter the new territories with slave property
on equal terms with the free states. Southerners, pushed to
the wall and losing their hold on national politics, showed a
disposition defiantly to insist upon their position. Should this
be denied them, they were prepared to withdraw to secure
their rights and to defend them with the sword.
37 Illinois State Register, July 3, 1849; Chicago Democrat, September 3,
1849; Illinois Globe, October 20, 1849.
38 John Wentworth led the northern democrats in their opposition to the
called session. Wentworth to French, June 28, 1849, French manuscripts; see
also Chicago Democrat, July, August, and September, 1849.
39 Illinois State Register, November i, 1849. Breese quietly acquiesced in the
result; McClernand's organ, the Shawneetown Southern Advocate, however,
burst out bitterly claiming that " McClernand was defeated and betrayed by
the free soil members of the legislature." " When such men as McClernand and
Breese," it commented, " are beaten by an arrogant, vain, ignorant, lying Irish-
man, it is high time that all men, who respect their characters should retire in
disgust from the political arena." Illinois Journal, November 8, December n,
1849.
64 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
This ominous situation was closely followed in Illinois.
The northern section was strongly committed to free soil;
Egypt, still seeking some middle ground, helplessly decried
agitation. The closing months of Folk's administration saw
Oregon organized under a policy of slavery restriction; the
Illinois votes in favor of this action were given on the ground
that it was not an application of a new policy but a moral
obligation created by the Missouri compromise line. 40 The
question of the disposition of California, of New Mexico, and
of Utah remained as a bone of contention between the hostile
sections.
Illinois had contributed large numbers of her citizens to
the settlement of California and naturally watched with great
interest developments on the Pacific coast. Great was her
applause, therefore, when a constitution was drawn up in the
new territory which refused to make provision for the insti-
tution of slavery. This was a development even more satis-
factory than congressional prohibition of slavery because it
promised to add a new free state to the union and to destroy
the even balance between the north and south in the senate.
Taylor's annual message and his special California message
urging the admission of this new state were warmly received
by the Wilmot provisoists and furnished them with a practical
working platform.
The situation naturally provoked bitter hostility in the
south. The admission of California as a free state, it was
declared in alarm, would be followed by New Mexico and
Utah. Even sober-minded southerners, influenced by a new
and more aggressive generation of leaders, began to calculate
the value of the union; separation was threatened in terms
of more or less passion and violence. In the tense and heated
atmosphere legislators at Washington became overwrought
and excited. Illinoisians were for the first time convinced
that there were southern politicians "determined, if possible,
to bring about a dissolution of the Union." 41 Their reply
was that it was the duty of the state, of the entire west, to
40 Illinois whigs were flattered that the office of governor of Oregon was
tendered to Abraham Lincoln, although he found it necessary to decline the
honor. Illinois State Register, October 4, 1849.
41 Illinois Journal, February i, 1850.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 65
prevent the accomplishment of this foul plan. "The great
and patriotic West," declared the Alton Telegraph, "has
become strong enough to strangle the monster of disunion the
moment it shall venture to raise its head." 42 It was denied
that ground for disunion existed. 43 William H. Bissell, the
Alton representative in congress, maintained an admirable
self-control under these trying conditions; but on the floor of
the house on February 21, he declared after an analysis of the
southern threats that the people of Illinois and of the northwest
would spring to arms to save the union. 44
Douglas eloquently claimed for his section a deciding role
in this stirring controversy: "There is a power in this nation
greater than either the North or the South a growing, in-
creasing, swelling power, that will be able to speak the law
to this nation, and to execute the law as spoken. That power
is the country known as the great West the Valley of the
Mississippi, one and indivisible from the gulf to the great
lakes, and stretching, on the one side and the other, to the
extreme sources of the Ohio and Missouri from the Allegha-
nies to the Rocky mountains. There, sir, is the hope of this
nation the resting place of the power that is not only to
control, but to save the Union This is the mis-
sion of the great Mississippi Valley, the heart and soul of the
nation and the continent." 43
John A. McClernand, Douglas' right-hand man in the
lower house, felt that the situation demanded that the west
prepare to display her strength. On the seventy-fourth anni-
versary of American independence he greatly feared for the
continuance of the union; Texas was making ready to defy
the federal government by force of arms; such action many
felt to be the signal for a disunion movement on the part of
the whole south. McClernand, therefore, confidentially giv-
ing his view of the interests of Illinois to Governor French,
advised the governor to take measures immediately to give the
state militia the greatest efficiency: "I would prepare for the
storm I would provide against portentous violence. This
42 Alton Telegraph, February i, 1850.
43 Chicago Democrat, April 8, 1850.
^Congressional Globe, 31 congress, i session, 225-228.
* 5 Ibid., 365; Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas, 175-176.
66 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
as a citizen of Illinois and a lover of the Union, I call upon
you to do." 46
Thus did the " raw head and bloody bones " of disunion
leer over the horizon to terrify the more timid. Soon a union-
saving cry arose promising to checkmate the strong sectionalism
that had been dominating the situation. Henry Clay, the great
compromiser, had left his retirement at Ashland to play the
role of peacemaker; his bold leadership made the idea of
compromise popular, and all sorts of schemes were brought
forward under that guise. Senator Douglas, though calm amid
the prevailing hysteria, became one of the union savers. His
clear fresh vision enabled him to foresee the failure of any
single comprehensive compromise proposition such as Clay had
recommended. Northern supporters of a California admis-
sion bill, aided by advocates of popular sovereignty in the
south, might easily enact that measure ; propositions for terri-
torial governments for New Mexico and Utah on the same
principle would receive support from moderate men in both
parties; and in both sections, after extreme sectional devices
had failed, the slave trade in the District of Columbia and the
fugitive slave evil could be dealt with on their merits; but to
tie all these into a single bungling scheme as Clay had urged
would bring defeat because of the unanimity of opposition to
specific objectional features. He commended the self-sacrificing
spirit of Clay and of Webster, but optimistically declared:
"The Union will not be put in peril; California will be admit-
ted; governments for the territories must be established; and
thus controversy will end, and I trust forever." 4T
Douglas held that the effective solution of the slavery ques-
tion would come through " the laws of nature, of climate, and
production " recognized and ratified by the people of a state or
territory, not by act of congress. He stressed the great demo-
cratic principle of leaving each community to determine and
regulate its own local and domestic affairs in its own way. This
was a safe road to freedom because the vast territory stretch-
ing from the Mississippi to the Pacific was rapidly filling up
with a hardy, enterprising, and industrious population, des-
46 McClernand to French, July 4, 1850, French manuscripts.
47 Congressional Globe, 31 congress, i session, 364 ff.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 67
tined by the laws of nature and of God to dedicate the new
territories to freedom.
For these reasons Douglas offered his solution on March 25
in the form of a California bill and a territorial bill; they were
drafted after conferences with Richardson and McClernand,
who introduced the same bills into the house. 48 Clay arranged
to incorporate these bills as the first part of the omnibus bill
which the select compromise committee of thirteen reported.
Douglas' territorial bill was silent on the slavery question; the
committee's measure contained an additional clause, prohibiting
the territorial legislatures from legislating on the slavery ques-
tion. This Douglas attacked as a restriction on the right of the
inhabitants of the territory to decide what their institutions
should be, for he was already in the lists as a champion of
popular sovereignty. 49
Congress began a long discussion of the Clay compromise,
of President Taylor's proposal to await the action of the people
of the territories in question, and of the northern and southern
schemes for the disposition of slavery. Douglas' proposal and
other plans were subordinated to these leading propositions.
Douglas was frequently on his feet in the senate ; Shields, his
colleague, usually followed his lead, while McClernand, Rich-
ardson, and Harris urged the same course in the house.
Douglas carefully explained his objection to the Wilmot pro-
viso but found it necessary in accordance with the instructions
of the Illinois legislature to vote with Shields for proposi-
tions embodying that principle ; 50 he was always much relieved
to find himself in the minority. The house delegation was
under no such formal obligation; its vote was usually divided,
with a majority against congressional intervention to restrict
slavery. John Wentworth, the strongest Wilmot proviso man
in the delegation, voted consistently for that principle; he
seldom took the floor, however, except to press the passage
of the California bill at times when its success was threatened
by other distracting questions. 51 Edward D. Baker, the lone
48 McClernand offered them, however, as parts of a single bill, a plan " not
of my authorship." Ibid., 628.
49 Ibid., 1114 ff. He was later gratified by the dropping of this clause.
50 Senate Journal, 31 congress, i session, 375.
51 Congressional Globe, 31 congress, i session, 1444, 1468.
68 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
whig, usually voted with Wentworth, while the other five demo-
cratic members opposed congressional restriction.
Douglas, preferring the separation of the various items in
the omnibus bill, had the satisfaction of witnessing the failure
of that measure in line with his predictions. By midsummer,
the omnibus had jolted over the rocks of sectionalism until all
its occupants had been spilled out save one the Utah terri-
torial proposition. Then Douglas, in accordance with his
original plan, began to press the items separately. The Utah
bill was given the right of way and rushed to passage. Then
in quick succession came the enactment of the New Mexico
territorial law, the California admission bill, and measures for
the more effective rendition of fugitive slaves and for the aboli-
tion of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
The Illinois representatives at Washington voted solidly
for the California and the District slave trade measures; but
Wentworth and Baker opposed the Utah, New Mexico, and
fugitive slave laws, which the other congressmen supported.
Douglas and Shields voted in favor of every one of these
measures of adjustment except the fugitive slave law. On the
days when it was brought up for final action, Douglas was
absent from Washington on business, but his colleagues knew
that he was in favor of the bill. 52 Shields, however, had no
alibi; the evidence suggests that he was one of the vote-
dodgers with whom Douglas was classed in the popular mind. 53
It is bootless to attempt to apportion the exact amount of
credit due to the different advocates of an amicable adjustment
of the slavery controversy, but Douglas was able to claim in
all modesty that he had played " an humble part in the enact-
ment of all these great measures." 54
Coincident with the struggle in congress the same forces
in Illinois were fighting for a decision. Whig journals that
had led in the demand for slavery restriction as essentially
part of the whig creed issued the call: " Rally f friends of
52 Congressional Globe, 32 congress, i session, appendix, 65.
63 At any rate he answered roll call on other propositions on two differ-
ent days when he abstained from voting on the fugitive slave bill. Senate
Journal, 31 congress, i session, 565, 581.
54 Senator Jefferson Davis declared to his colleagues in these words: "If
any man has a right to be proud of the success of these measures, it is the
Senator from Illinois."
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 69
the Union, rally ! ! " Whigs were divided into advocates of the
Clay compromise and supporters of the president's no-action
plan; both groups, however, agreed to waive the Wilmot
proviso policy as one no longer necessary. 55 The democrats,
moreover, welcomed the opportunity to heal the division in
their own ranks over the slavery issue. 56
The union savers at an early date began organizing to
influence public sentiment in favor of compromise. Belleville,
a town where the populace gathered in mass meeting at the
slightest provocation usually ex-Governor John Reynolds
was one of the first cities in the country to hold a union meet-
ing; on January 24 it adopted resolutions offered by Reynolds
that the union be saved at all hazards. 57 A little later union
mass meetings in Jacksonville, Edwardsville, and a few small
towns voiced the same sentiment; the large Illinois cities, how-
ever, remained inactive until the middle of June. When,
finally, a Springfield meeting indorsed the report of the com-
promise committee of thirteen, it was in numbers scarcely
representative of that community. 58 The Jacksonville com-
promisers again summoned the voters of Morgan county to a
union gathering, but three days later the Wilmot provisoists
were able to arrange an equally successful meeting. 59
The cry of "compromise" stimulated the activity of the
agitators throughout the nation; in Illinois such excitement
on the slavery question had never been known as prevailed in
March of 1850. Proviso meetings were held at Waukegan,
Ottawa, and other places. 60 A considerable stir was caused
by a nonpartisan free soil meeting at the city hall in Chicago
presided over by Mayor J. H. Woodworth, in which resolu-
tions were adopted expressing utter abhorrence at all com-
promises that permitted the further extension of human slavery ;
condemning a compromise scheme attributed to Douglas by the
press; and firmly declaring in favor of the Wilmot proviso
and of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.
65 Illinois Journal, May 2, 1850; Joliet Signal, May 28, 1850.
66 Belleville Advocate, May 30, 1850.
57 Alton Telegraph, February 8, 1850.
58 Illinois Journal, June 18, 1850.
59 Morgan Journal, June 22, 1850.
60 Chicago Democrat, March 15, April 6, 1850; Ottawa Free Trader, March
16, 1850.
70 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
In spite of the "no-party" appeal, whig provisoists were dis-
appointed because Henry Clay's name was received with cold-
ness while Benton's brought an outburst of applause; demo-
crats, moreover, claimed that it was the work of fanatics and
of political opponents of Senator Douglas a charge corrobo-
rated by the Illinois Journal, which disapproved of this " knot
of politicians .... bent on driving Mr. Douglas from
the Senate." 61
The free soilers sought to utilize the opportunity to
strengthen their independent party organization; local and
district conventions were arranged and the propriety of a
state convention discussed. This activity was sufficient to
douse completely the interest of old-line party men, who, for
fear of embarrassing their own organizations, withdrew from
the movement. Finally the Chicago Tribune, for two years
a free soil organ, announced its decision to sever its ties with
the free democratic organization. 62
By this time, moreover, the union antidote had begun to
work; the suggestion that it was "THE UNION vs. THE WIL-
MOT PROVISO " left no alternative but to yield the principle of
congressional intervention in the territories to the preserva-
tion of the compromises of the constitution. 63 Webster's sev-
enth of March speech, though characterized by the Belleville
Advocate as "profound but soulless" and "lacking in hon-
esty," circulated in large editions, and strengthened the argu-
ment of those who held that slavery could never go into New
Mexico or Utah. Clay's compromise scheme began to win
support as an arrangement which despite its defects was likely
to allay thre excitement that was pervading the country. 64
The main obstacle in the way of the union savers was the
hostility to the proposed fugitive slave legislation. Douglas
was known to be in favor of the measure as simple justice to
the south under the constitution; papers like the State Register,
81 Chicago Dally Journal, February 22, 1850; Illinois Journal, February 27,
1850; Illinois State Register, February 27, 28, 1850; Joliet Signal, February 26,
1850. Douglas repudiated the alleged compromise proposition and denounced
the resolution of censure. Douglas to Woodworth, March 5, Illinois Journal,
March 26, 1850.
62 Chicago Tribune, May 29, clipped in Western Citizen, June 4, 1850.
88 Quincy Whig, February 19, 1850.
64 Alton Telegraph, March i, 8, 22 and other numbers, 1850.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 71
therefore, came out in support of the proposed measure. 65
This only served, however, to arouse protests from those who
denied that they were so destitute of humanity and feeling as
to accept such a clear violation of the principle of common
justice.
The news of its passage inflamed these objectors to action;
the measure, they declared, had no moral or constitutional
justification and ought to be resisted. 66 Petitions for its imme-
diate repeal were widely circulated. Thirteen thousand copies
of an anti-fugitive slave bill pamphlet were sold in three weeks
at the rate of five cents per copy. " In our candid judgments,"
declared the Ottawa Free Trader, "there has not been, during
the present century a law passed, or an edict issued by any
government claiming to be free, which outrages justice as this
law does." " The law will be a dead letter. It cannot be
enforced." 67
The friends of the Negro rallied to express their opinion
in indignation meetings. Kenosha citizens on October 18
appointed a vigilance committee and listened to a deputy mar-
shall assert that he would not serve a writ for the arrest of
a fugitive slave. 68 The Congregational church at Aurora
became the meeting' place of a similar assembly. From many
pulpits and ministerial, associations were thundered violent
denunciations. Chicagoans in mass meeting assembled spoke
in strong, earnest condemnation of the obnoxious law. 69 Re-
flecting the popular indignation, the Chicago common council,
with only two dissenting votes, formally pronounced the law
cruel, unjust, and unconstitutional, a transgression of the laws
of God, and declared that congressmen from the free states
who assisted in its passage or "who basely sneaked away from
their seats, and thereby evaded the question," were "fit only
to be ranked with the traitors;" it was formally resolved that
the city police would not be required to render any assistance
for the arrest of fugitive slaves. 70
65 Illinois State Register, September 19, 26, 1850.
66 W estern Citizen, October 8, 29, November 5, 19, 1850.
67 Ottawa Free Trader clipped in Chicago Democrat, October 14, 1850.
68 Ibid., October 23, 1850.
^Aurora Beacon, October 24, 1850; Chicago Journal, October 26, 1850.
70 Illinois State Register, October 31, 1850; Joliet Signal, December 3, 1850.
72 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Shields and Douglas, returning to their homes while public
opinion was in this state of ferment, tried to stem the tide of
protest, the former at a speech in Springfield on October 29
and the latter in an address at Chicago on the evenings of
October 21 and 23. In spite of his absence at the final roll
call Douglas, greeted by the hisses and jeers of a hostile
audience, assumed the full responsibility of an affirmative vote;
in his speech he so boldly and eloquently reminded his hearers
that refusal to return a fugitive slave to his master was a
violation of the constitution and a blow at the permanence
of the union that at its close occurred one of those remarkable
instances of mob spirit dropping a set of old idols for a new
shrine at which to worship. Douglas presented a series of
resolutions declaring the obligation of all good citizens to
maintain the constitution and all laws enacted in accordance
with it; these were adopted without a dissenting vote, where-
upon a bolder step was taken and the audience was actually
induced to vote an express repudiation of the resolutions of
the common council. 71
This unexpected indorsement of Douglas' position may
be interpreted as a personal triumph of a masterful statesman
in the very citadel of fanaticism, the laurels won by the per-
suasive eloquence of a lion-hearted orator. Time, however,
showed that it had a deeper significance. Public opinion,
wearied of agitation, was especially susceptible to any appeal
for political quiet; the practical man realized the difficulty
of effecting a repeal of legislation that had formally reached
the statute books, while the agitator exhausted himself in futile
condemnation of the most strenuous nine months of legislative
controversy in American history.
The revival of party allegiance was a potent force in this
process of readjustment. Party leaders finally came to realize
that interest in the struggle at Washington had interfered
with normal political activity at home. The closing weeks of
congress and the period following adjournment, therefore,
witnessed a general attempt to get the party machinery into
71 Sheahan, Life of Douglas, 186; Flint, Life of Douglas, appendix 30;
Chicago Daily Journal, October 24, 1850, The author of the other resolutions
was B. S. Morris, a prominent old-line whig. Shields also introduced resolu-
tions supporting the fugitive slave law. Illinois State Register, October 31, 1850.
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE 73
running order for the state and congressional elections in
November, though it was too late to hold state conventions
to nominate candidates for state treasurer. The democratic
state committee, therefore, took the responsibility of offering
the name of John Moore, 72 while the whigs made a feeble
effort to rally to the support of John T. Knox.
Democratic forces were badly split in the northern dis-
tricts; but party leaders and party journals eloquently pleaded
for union and harmony, for dropping past differences and unit-
ing under one banner. 73 So zealously was this matter pressed
that the separate free democratic candidate in the Chicago
district was compelled to withdraw from the field. "Long
John " had found his place in congress too unattractive to run
again, 74 so that the party united on Dr. Richard S. Moloney,
a Wentworth protege of strong antislavery feelings ; the State
Register, however, struck his name from the list of democratic
candidates that it posted. 75 This made the contest in that
district, as elsewhere, a straight-out whig and democratic duel
with only a handful of abolitionists in an independent move-
ment. In the Springfield district Richard Yates, the whig
candidate, defeated Thomas L. Harris in his campaign for
reelection and was the only whig member returned to congress.
Old party allegiance had thus crushed the very existence
of the promising free soil movement of 1848. Strong anti-
slavery activities were regarded as inconsistent with a proper
loyalty to the union; they had been proved, moreover, in a
party sense, to be disorganizing and party politicians now
opposed them more than ever on that score. No sooner,
therefore, had the legislative session organized in January,
1851, than a joint resolution was introduced declaring that
inasmuch as the constitution was created and adopted in a spirit
of compromise, and as slavery was one of the principal sub-
72 Illinois State Register, September 5, 1850; Zarley to French, August 30,
1850, French manuscripts.
73 Ottawa Free Trader, August 17, 30, September 28, 1850; Chicago Demo-
crat, August 26, 30, September 6, 1850.
74 Wentworth to E. W. Austin, July i, 1850, ibid., July 19, 1850; Chicago
Daily Journal, July 10, 1850.
75 Illinois State Register, October 17, 1850. Wentworth's opponents were
planning to establish a rival conservative democratic paper in Chicago. Gal-
loway to French, July 24, 1850, Harris to French, July 27, 1850, French manu-
scripts.
74 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
jects of compromise, as the constitution did not conflict with
the divine law and as there was no higher law than the con-
stitution, therefore, all controversy upon the subject of slavery
was to be deprecated; for these reasons the measures of adjust-
ment passed by congress in 1850, including the fugitive slave
law, were given a hearty approval, the Illinois delegation in
congress was instructed to use their best abilities and influence
in resistance to any attempt to disturb this settlement, and the
Wilmot proviso resolutions of instruction of 1849 were
rescinded. 76
This resolution, which was promptly passed, is an indi-
cation of the spirit that dominated party politics in Illinois
up to the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Especially
was this true of the Illinois democracy, which was able to
congratulate itself, despite antislavery resolutions of county
and district conventions in the northern part of the state, that
the state organization had never become contaminated with
free soilism but had succeeded on the principles laid down by
Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, while the party in
other states had been divided by schisms and overwhelmed by
defeat. 77 This remained a source of party strength until 1854
when it suddenly became a serious element of weakness with
the reopening of the slavery controversy.
La<ws of 1851, p. 205-207; Underwood to Gillespie, January 15, 1851,
Gillespie manuscripts.
77 Joliet Signal, July 22, 1851.
IV. PRAIRIE FARMING AND BANKING
WITH the rush of immigration into Illinois new blood
and energy was injected into all phases of agricul-
tural activity. While the rest of the industrial population of the
state increased only twenty per cent, the agriculturists more
than doubled in the decade ending in 1860. The new settlers
brought with them their own notions of successful farming,
but their enthusiasm for the new environment tempered their
devotion to old methods and inclined them to select only those
features which might make for improvement. With the prairies
thrown open for agricultural development and prairie farming
only in its infancy this spirit of experimentation contributed to
the important progress made in the last decade of the ante-
bellum period.
Already by 1850 the adaptability of Illinois soil for spe-
cialization in corn culture had been demonstrated; a crop of
57,646,984 bushels of this staple represented an output nearly
three times that of other grain crops. This emphasis on corn
continued and was reflected in even stronger terms in 1860
when an output of 115,174,777 bushels moved Illinois from
third rank as a corn growing state to the head of the column.
In this decade the corn belt began to shift from the Illinois
valley to the prairies of the eastern counties in the central divi-
sion. Besides its supremacy in corn production, Illinois, the
fifth wheat growing state of 1850, by more than doubling its
wheat production, carried off first honors in 1860 with 23,837,-
023 bushels. In the early fifties the belief spread that the risks
in wheat culture were less in southern Illinois where the grain
matured earlier and was saved from the blight and rust caused
by the June and July rains ; and Egypt, which had been steadily
losing ground during the forties, recovered with a sixfold
increase while the northern and central divisions doubled their
crops. The northern counties, however, still produced over
75
76 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
one-half the wheat of the state. Northern Illinois also raised
nearly three-fourths of the 15,220,029 oats crop of 1859,
which represented a fifty per cent increase for the decade, and
two-thirds of the rye crop of 951,281 bushels, and of the bar-
ley crop of 1,036,338 bushels, both of which represented ten-
fold increases.
With these important gains in the agricultural output of
the state, Illinois became one of the most important granaries
for the supply of the industrial centers of the Atlantic seaboard
and Europe. Illinois flour began to find its way into eastern
and European markets, the southern Illinois product being
especially favored. Chicago came into its own as the grain
emporium of Illinois and the west, an "agricultural weather-
cock" "showing from whence comes the balmy winds of pros-
perity." Soon it was the largest primary grain depot in the
world. 1
Grain buyers from Chicago scoured every section of the
state, including even the extreme southern portion, and ar-
ranged to ship the crops northward. In order to hurry the
grain to the eastern markets, eighteen of the most prominent
mercantile houses organized a " Merchants' Grain Forwarding
Association" in September, 1857. This represented a division
of labor which changed the Board of Trade, organized in 1848,
into a general commercial organization. Heavy grain specu-
lation began to develop at Chicago ; the operators worked inces-
santly at the exchange at the Board of Trade rooms and at a
certain street corner known as " gamblers' corner." Many a
fortune of $20,000 or $30,000 was made within a few weeks,
though numbers of "lame ducks" appeared at the same time. 2
The general effect upon the business of the city was extremely
good, but the farmers were restive under this system ano!
throughout the decade continued a spasmodic agitation for
cooperative associations for the disposal of their produce.
Finally in 1858, local agitation led to a farmers' congress at
the state fair at Centralia which adopted a declaration in favor
1 Illinois State Journal, September 6, 1855; Ottawa Free Trader, Feb-
ruary 1 8, 1854.
2 Cairo Times and Delta, July 15, 1857; Quincy Whig, October 3, 1857;
Chicago Daily Times, October 7, 1857; Guyer, History of Chicago, 23; Chicago
Democrat, May 5, 1857; Chicago Press and Tribune, July 4, 1859.
FARMING AND BANKING 77
of the formation of wholesale purchasing and selling agencies
in the great centers of commerce " so that producers may, in
a great measure, have it in their power to save the profits of
retailers." 3 It was another matter, however, to translate this
resolution into action.
Good crops prevailed generally throughout the decade ex-
cept in 1854 when a general drought did especially heavy
damage in the southern part of the state. Vegetation in many
districts was entirely burned up, wells and creeks dried up, and
farmers unable to secure water often sold their stock to be
driven where feed and water could be had rather than see it
perish. The corn crop was seriously damaged, but small grains
suffered less. Although there was no danger of a food short-
age, the food speculators were soon at work forcing prices up
to new records. High prices had been prevailing since the
European famine year of 1847 which drove wheat up to $1.25
a bushel; a gradual drop had ended with the Crimean War
news in early 1854 which, followed by the activity of foreign
buyers, brought back $1.10 and $1.25 wheat. By that time
prices which had previously varied considerably were becoming
standardized by Chicago and New Orleans markets. The
summer drought sent prices of breadstuffs higher than they
had been for eighteen years, wheat selling at $1.25, corn at 40
cents and potatoes at $1.50. Normal prices had not been
entirely restored when the panic of 1857 arrived. Speculators
began to talk of short grain crops and of the rot in potatoes,
but crowded cellars and bursting grain ricks contradicted their
statements. They were able, however, to keep the bottom
from falling out of the market, although the farmer suffered
from the depression; the price of foodstuffs was prohibitive
for the poor of the cities. 4
It was obvious to the more aggressive and progressive agri-
culturalists of the state that education could work a vast
improvement in prevailing methods and practices. Even con-
s Rockford Register, October 16, 1858; Rockford Forum, July 18, 1848;
Western Citizen, January 8, 1850; Our Constitution, June 26, 1858.
4 Joliet Signal, August 29, September 5, 1859; Chicago Daily Times, Sep-
tember 3, 1857. While exorbitant prices prevailed in Chicago, corn was burned
for fuel at Kankakee as cheaper than coal. Rockford Republican, January 21,
1858.
78 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
temporary critics characterized the methods of cultivation as
"most slovenly." "This is especially true in the Southern
counties. The best farmers plough only four or five inches
deep, never use a hoe, but do perhaps once in a season run a
cultivator between the rows of Indian corn. Under such cir-
cumstances it is not probable that much more than half of
what might be is raised." This was obvious, when in contrast
with the general average of 35 bushels such large scale pro-
gressive farmers as B. F. Harris of Champaign county and
David Strawn of La Salle county could raise over 60 bushels
of corn per acre. B. F. Harris in 1855 harvested 700 acres
of corn at 65 bushels per acre, 70 acres of oats at 30 bushels,
20 of wheat at 20 bushels, and 2 of potatoes at 75, besides
raising 100 tons of hay, 360 head of cattle, 21 horses, 200
hogs and 12 sheep. In the same county Michael L. Sullivant
planted over 7,000 acres in corn. There were farms with an
acreage of 10,000 and even 27,000, one of the latter having
3,000 acres of corn in a single field. These large farms
attracted considerable attention, but little was known of their
methods by the small holders. 5 '
With the decade of the fifties, however, the Illinois agri-
culturist began for the first time seriously to analyze his weak-
nesses and to determine his future needs. Out of the agitation
for industrial education came the proposition to organize a
state agricultural society. Farmers' associations and agricul-
tural societies already existed in several counties, and under
the leadership of the Sangamon County Agricultural Society
the Illinois State Agricultural Society was launched at Spring-
field on January 5, 1853. One function of the new organiza-
tion was to encourage the formation of additional county
agricultural societies; it drafted a model constitution; and by
the direct cooperation of its officers new societies were formed,
first in the northern and central counties and later in southern
Illinois. The legislature was induced to appropriate an annual
sum of fifty dollars to each county society having an active
existence. By the end of the decade, therefore, eighty-eight
agricultural societies were to be found in Illinois, twenty more
5 Prairie Farmer, July, 1855; Western Journal, 2:254; Urbana Union, Oc-
tober 25, 1855; Our Constitution, June 12, 1858; Illinois Globe, September 22,
1849.
FARMING AND BANKING 79
than in any other state in the union. At the same time a
broader connection was established when Illinois came to take
part in the sessions of the National Agricultural Society, and
when the Northwestern Agricultural Society established its
headquarters at Chicago in i859. 6
Both the state and county societies placed especial emphasis
on their annual fairs; the first state fair was held at Spring-
field, October 11-14, 1853. It was the policy of the society at
this time to pass the state fair around among the various cities
of the state ; a movement gathered considerable force to local-
ize it at Springfield with permanent grounds, purchased with a
legislative appropriation ; but it was defeated by the combined
opposition of rival places. 7
The premiums offered by the State Agricultural Society
aroused general interest in new agricultural machinery. Sev-
eral Illinois reapers were on the market, including, besides
the Cyrus H. McCormick machine, the manufacture of which
had come to be concentrated at Chicago, the inventions of
Obed Hussey of Chicago, J. H. Manny of Freeport, Jerome
Atkins of Will county, Charles Denton of Peoria, and G. H.
Rugg of Ottawa. It was said that three of the four reaping
machines that took prizes at the Paris exhibition in 1855 were
owned and manufactured by residents of Illinois. Reaper
trials were arranged to test the respective merits of the various
machines; the State Agricultural Society held a trial at Salem
in July, 1 857, followed a few days later by a privately arranged
contest at Urbana in which five reapers were entered. Advan-
tages continued in favor of the C. H. McCormick machine
which enjoyed special patent rights. 8 The success of mowers
6 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, October 25, 1852; Prairie Farmer, De-
cember, 1852; Illinois State Register, January 13, 1853; Peru Daily Chronicle,
January 6, 1854; Chicago Weekly Democrat, April 8, 1854; Chicago Press and
Tribune, September 19, 1859, April 13, 1860.
7 Illinois State Agricultural Society, Transactions, i:43ff. ; Aurora Beacon,
January 27, 1859.
8 When, in 1852, McCormick applied for the renewal of certain patents
that had already expired, considerable opposition developed on the part both
of reaper inventors and of farmers who were unwilling to pay the patent fee
of $30 which McCormick was able to collect under his monopoly. Ottawa Free
Trader, February 7, 12, April 17, 1852; J. D. Webster to Trumbull, August 7,
1856, Trumbull manuscripts. See article "Illinois The Reaper State," Chicago
Advertiser clipped in Illinois State Register, November 6, 1851; also ibid.,
September 4, November 13, 1851, September 13, 1855.
8o THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
and reapers was so evident that inventive genius was next
directed toward raking and binding attachments; L. D. Phil-
lips of Chicago patented such an invention in December, 1857.
Others brought out improvements in old machines with special
devices of their own. The desire to develop a "steam plow"
which might be used to turn the prairie sod with more economy
than the use of horses, oxen, or mules would permit, furnished
an interesting field of experimentation. At a trial at Decatur
on November 10 and n, 1858, a demonstration was made
under unfavorable conditions, which was voted satisfactory by
the newspaper correspondents. Another trial was made at the
state fair at Freeport in 1859 with the Fawkes' steam plow,
which had been awarded the grand gold medal at the United
States Agricultural Fair the preceding year; the committee,
however, was unable to arrive at a decision as to its success. 9
By this time a considerable amount of agricultural machin-
ery had been introduced on the large farms in certain regions
along the Illinois river and in the upper counties, so that cul-
tivators, seed drills, reapers, and mowers became fairly com-
mon while even a threshing machine was occasionally seen. 10
The value of farm implements and farm machinery increased
from $6,405,561 in 1850 to $17,235,472 in 1860.
One of the chief difficulties of the Illinois farmer was that
of securing a cheap and efficient fencing. Wood was too scarce
and too expensive for its limited wearing qualities; wire and
specially prepared sheet iron strips nailed to posts in the
ground proved not altogether satisfactory; ditching and bank-
ing schemes and sod fences met with slight success, and though
various kinds of hedges were tried, they were usually too slow
of growth. Then Jonathan B. Turner introduced the Osage
orange which had all the qualities most needed for a successful
hedge cheapness, certainty, quick growth, and unlimited
endurance. By 1848 he had tried out two or three miles of
hedge on his farm; and though it cost him $150 a mile for a
three years' growth, he was able to sell plants at $10 per thou-
9 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, January 8, 1858; Chicago Press and
Tribune, November 15, 1858, September 13, 1859; Belleville Advocate, Novem-
ber 24, 1858; Illinois State Agricultural Society, Transactions, 3:99-100; 4:23.
10 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, September 17, 1857; Alton Courier,
August 2, 1858.
FARMING AND BANKING 81
sand. Turner immediately called the attention of leading
agriculturalists to his experiments, and by 1851 so many were
converted to the Osage orange hedge that it threatened to
supersede all other kinds of fences in a few years. 11
Signs of a growing diversification of agriculture appeared
during the fifties. Northern Illinois was raising potatoes in
increasing quantities while in the southern counties castor beans
became a favorite crop. The pioneer farmer and the recent
settler had lacked the time to set out fruit trees and had later
neglected this means of varying their hog and hominy diet. In
1850 there were few signs of fruit culture in Illinois. "Where
the strawberry-bed ought to be, you will perhaps find a tobacco
patch, and the hog-pen has usurped the place of the currant
bushes," 12 commented a thoughtful traveler.
Illinois farmers gradually became alive to this neglect of
horticulture, especially as the demand arising for fruit and
vegetables brought exorbitant prices for the available supply.
Soon important developments were evident in the extreme
southern counties of the state; by 1860 apples, peaches, and
melons were shipped in large quantities from the southern
fruit farms. Alton became an important fruit market with
large exports; its peaches were sometimes ordered direct by
New York fruit houses. Peach orchards of 1,000 trees became
fairly common. Isaac Underhill of Peoria had on his " Rome
Farm" of 2,200 acres an orchard one mile square with 10,000
grafted apple trees and 6,000 peach trees. William Yates had
a four hundred acre farm in Perry county with over 4,000
peach, pear, and apple trees besides a wide assortment of
smaller fruits. Mathias L. Dunlap's nursery near Urbana
came to have a wide reputation for its excellent fruit and filled
orders from every part of the west. Grape culture flourished
in the German districts around Alton and Belleville; many
11 J. B. Turner to French, May 24, July 7, 1848, French manuscripts; Prairie
Farmer, January, 1851 ; Western Journal, 5: 190; Joliet Signal, January 14, 1851;
Illinois Journal, April 2, 1851. Wire fences cost $181.80 per mile; rails $149.60,
according to J. D. Whitely in Prairie Farmer, October, 1848.
12 Chicago Tribune clipped in Illinois State Register, March 13, 1850. Potato
prices hovered around the dollar mark during the earlier years of the decade
but later dropped to twenty-five and thirty-five cents a bushel and became in
truth the "poor man's comforter." Alton Weekly Courier, August 24, 1855;
Mound City Emporium, May 13, 1858, March 17, 1859.
82 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
temperance advocates began to look to the use of native wines
as the most satisfactory way of banishing drunkenness from
the land. 13 In October, 1851, the Northwestern Fruit Growers'
Association was organized; and, supported almost entirely by
residents of Illinois, it met in annual session until 1857, when
it decided to merge itself into the Illinois Horticultural Society,
organized in 1856.
There were, of course, some unsuccessful attempts at diver-
sification. In 1848 an enthusiastic campaign was inaugurated
to develop hemp growing to the point of successful competition
with the Missouri farmers; in a few years, however, the move-
ment collapsed. Experiments were attempted with flax culture
but without marked success, while the cotton crop of southern
Illinois rapidly declined in spite of the previous success with it
in that region.
The most exciting venture in the field of agriculture during
the decade was in the cultivation of the " Chinese sugar cane."
The whole northwest nourished the ambition to convert itself
into a sugar-growing district. In 1856 J. M. Kroh and a few
other farmers in Wabash* county planted small plots of this
"Chinese millet," "sorgo sucre" or "northern sugar cane"
as it was variously called, and reported great success with
an output of forty-five gallons of syrup from a half acre not-
withstanding many unfavorable factors. Immediately the
keenest interest was aroused in this new discovery. Kroh alone
sold seed to over 2,000 persons, and his neighbors distributed
their su-rplus; seed was also distributed by congressmen as
political favors to their constituents. In the next season the
cane was planted in every county in the state ; in many districts
nearly every farmer planted at least a few rows by way of
experiment; and Kroh's neighbor, Edwin S. Baker of Rochester
Mills, tried the experiment on the largest scale, with twenty
acres. The success of these various enterprises aroused enthu-
siasm for the new crop; sorghum molasses was immediately
enrolled as an Illinois staple, and successful experiments in
granulation made domestic sugar merely a question of the cost
of manufacture. An Illinois State Sugar Cane Convention was
held at Springfield, January 7, 1858; after an organization
13 Chicago Weekly Democrat, August 6, 1853.
FARMING AND BANKING 83
of the sugar growers was perfected, experiences were ex-
changed and important data assembled. 14 The result was an
increased acreage and harvest. Sugar mills were installed,
and although the production of sugar was found impracticable,
the extraction of syrup was very successful; one mill in Spring-
field was operated in season day and night with a three hun-
dred gallon daily output. The Illinois advocates of the Chinese
sugar cane were exultant; nowhere in the United States had its
cultivation been so successful and so encouraging.
Stock raising was an especially important interest in central
Illinois where it proved a most profitable business when prac-
ticed on advanced principles. Three of the most extensive
cattle raisers were Isaac Funk of Bloomington, who in 1854
sold in a single lot 1,400 head of cattle averaging 700 pounds
for $64,000; Jacob Strawn, who fed the first steers in Morgan
county and who " has probably fed more since that time than
all other men in the county together;" 15 and B. F. Harris of
Champaign county who made a fine showing at the World's
Fair at New York in 1853; in 1855 he raised 500 head of cat-
tle and 200 hogs and marketed a drove of 100 bullocks aver-
aging 2,373 pounds. In the early days large cattle feeders
like Jacob Strawn had to scour all central and southern Illinois
and the settled parts of Missouri and Iowa to secure stock;
now in the fifties cattle was brought in droves from Missouri,
Texas, and even Mexico to convert the immense yield of Illinois
corn into marketable form.
The more enterprising farmers of central Illinois were with
decided advantage beginning to introduce blooded stock to
improve the breed of cattle raised. It was next suggested that
a joint stock company be organized to import first grade cattle
from the east and from Europe. This suggestion was acted
upon in December, 1856, when the Illinois Stock Importing
Company was organized at Springfield with an immediate sub-
scription of $12,700 worth of capital stock. A few months
14 Western Journal, ^.-.i^G. ; F. S. Frazier to Trumbull, February 5, 1857,
John H. Bryant to Trumbull, February 12, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts; Illinois
State Journal, January 13, 1858.
15 Prairie Farmer, November, 1854; cf. Chicago Weekly Democrat, Decem-
ber 23, 1854. His cattle sales in that season exceeded $96,000. Strawn for years
either supplied or controlled the St. Louis beef market.
84 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
later its agents headed by Dr. H. V. Johns, former president
of the Illinois Agricultural Society, were sent to England to
make purchases. Some eighty head of imported stock arrived
in Springfield in August, 1857, and were sold at auction to
citizens of Illinois on the understanding that they should
remain in the state for two years.
For pork growing few regions were as favorable as the
Illinois prairies. Allowed to run at large upon the open plains
as well as in the few timbered districts, hogs multiplied so
rapidly that it was often a matter of difficulty to decide to
whom a lot of grunting porkers owed allegiance. For this
reason there were many advocates of a law for their confine-
ment. 16 Since this was the only problem in hog raising for
there seemed to be no hog cholera or other disease until the
spring of 1859 hogs were the chief means of converting the
corn of the state into good marketable form. In 1850, 1,915,-
907 hogs were raised; by 1860 the number had increased to
2,502,308.
Woolgrowing met with less success than other livestock
interests in spite of the fact that Illinois seemed admirably
adapted for sheep raising and although for some time the
annual output of wool, chiefly from the northern counties and
certain central districts, showed an increase. Extensive wool-
growers like Truman Humphreys of Peoria and James McCon-
nell of Sangamon county insisted that wool could be grown
in Illinois more profitably than anywhere else in the United
States. With uncertain prices for wool, however, and with
a more certain reward in other fields, most farmers were
content to leave these opportunities to the advocate of wool-
growing. In the census of 1850, 894,043 sheep were listed
with a wool crop of 2,150,113 pounds; but by 1860 an actual
decrease of 14 per cent was indicated in the census total of
769,135 sheep.
The total value of the livestock of the state in 1850 was
$24,209,258 and consequently meat packing had become an
important industry ; in that year animals to the value of $4,972,-
286 were slaughtered. Pork brought in this decade prices
ranging from $2 and $2.50 per hundred in the early years to
16 Cairo Weekly Delta, November 23, 1848; Prairie Farmer, November, 1848.
FARMING AND BANKING 85
$5 and $6 in the latter part. For an average pork packing
town 20,000 was a fair season's packing, and nearly a half
million were packed annually in the state. In Alton and in
the towns along the Illinois, notably Beardstown the origi-
nal Porkopolis and Peoria, thousands of hogs were slaugh-
tered each year; but with the opening of the canal and of the
railroads more and more of the hogs were taken to Chicago
to be slaughtered. By 1859 this tendency was so marked that
Chicago had become the third pork packing city in the west
and promised shortly to eclipse its rivals in the hog trade.
The same development in the beef packing industry made
Chicago in 1860 the greatest general meat packing center in
the west.
The decade of progress along agricultural lines increased
5,039,545 acres of improved lands in 1850 to 13,096,374 ten
years later. Unimproved holdings of 6,997,867 acres in-
creased to 7,815,615. This represented an increased acreage
of 73.7 per cent. The number of farms nearly doubled and
the value of farm property nearly quadrupled. These statis-
tics reflect the extraordinary demand for land that prevailed
throughout the decade. Illinois, indeed, was still in the whirl
of land speculation. The inpouring of settlers and the opening
of the canal and of the railroads combined to produce a
heavier demand and a greater accessibility for unoccupied
holdings. Generally speaking, land sales came to involve
fewer and fewer direct transactions between the government
and the actual settler.
The unique event of 1848 was the placing upon the mar-
ket of the Illinois and Michigan canal lands, an event which had
been delayed by the interests of a clique of Chicago specu-
lators. Prominent Chicago politicians claimed preemption
rights which held up some of the most valuable pieces; 17 and,
with money scarce and the speculative feeling supposedly not
very high, the sales went off with little spirit. The remaining
lands, increased by 35,000 acres under a new construction of
the federal grant, were offered to the public in annual sales.
A rush to these sales began in 1852 and 1853; Chicago hotels
17 Colonel Charles Oakley to French, August 26, September 6, 1848, French
manuscripts.
86 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
were crowded, considerable excitement and competition among
purchasers developed, and the bidding was prompt and spir-
ited. By 1855 the best of the lands had been taken, although
the sales continued to be held each successive year until the end
of the decade.
On September 28, 1850, congress donated to the several
states in which they lay, the public swamp lands and lands
liable to overflow. These lands, which eventually totalled
1,833,413 acres, were promptly surveyed; and the general
assembly of Illinois granted them to the counties in which
they were located for the construction of the necessary levees
and drains to reclaim them ; the balance, if any, was to be dis-
tributed among the townships equally for education or roads
and bridges as the county authorities might decide. These
lands had been placed on sale and many disposed of when the
federal government intervened on account of certain technicali-
ties, which were not adjusted until after the purchasers had
gone through a long siege of uncertainty. When in 1857 the
rights of the states were confirmed by congress, the lands were
again placed on the market; and all sales were later formally
approved by the general assembly. 18
In 1851, the assembly first directed the auditor to with-
hold from sale state lands along the more important railroad
lines and later suspended the sale of all state holdings until
two years later when they were again placed on the market,
the proceeds to be devoted to the liquidation of the state
indebtedness, with preemption rights for squatter settlers. 19
The state, however, was not the most important factor
in the land sales of this period. The various federal land
offices dispensed tracts from the millions of acres still in the
possession of the federal government. Cash sales continued to
be heavy while thousands of acres were entered with Mexican
War land warrants and with warrants under the bounty land
act of September 28, 1850. The lands along the Illinois Cen-
tral were withheld from sale for a year while the selections
18 Laws of 1852, p. 178-186; Laws of 1859, p. 201, 202; see petitions in
Trumbull manuscripts for 1856.
19 Laws of 1851, p. 23, 204; Laws of 1853, p. 231-234. These preemption
rights and sales in general were extended under acts of February 15, 1855, and
February 16, 1857.
FARMING AND BANKING 87
were being made for the Illinois Central railroad under its
grant of 1850, after which there was a heavy rush both by
actual settlers and by speculators; soon all lands within the
grant were entered. Sales were especially brisk in southern
Illinois, where the best lands were soon exhausted. The
poorer lands, however, spurned in the open market, were
quickly taken up, when, in 1854, congress passed a graduation
act which permitted land entries at as little as twelve and one-
half cents an acre.
As a result of these activities the public lands rapidly dis-
appeared. The Quincy land office was closed up in June of
1855 ; already the Shawneetown district was rapidly approach-
ing the 100,000 acre minimum which would terminate its claim
to a separate land office. It was not long before the books
of the general land office showed only a little over one quarter
of a million acres remaining unsold. 20
This left the Illinois Central the greatest landed proprietor
of Illinois. An immense tract of two and a half million acres
scattered over forty-seven counties and equal to ten counties
of over four hundred square miles was transferred by the
federal government to the railroad through the state as an
intermediary. The selections were made and the titles com-
pleted by the spring of 1852 when the company prepared to
open up its land office. The lands were divided into four
classes: about 50,000 acres valuable either as especially
suitable for town sites or as containing mineral wealth were
to sell at not less than $20 per acre; 350,000 acres of superior
farming land at $15 an acre; 1,300,000 acres at $8; and the
remainder at $5. These prices were to be applied to land
which, lying on the unbroken prairies, had previously been
undesirable at $1.25 an acre; and while this schedule was being
fixed, the government was selling its adjacent holdings at a
maximum of $2.50 an acre. On September 27, 1854, the
company opened its Bloomington office which in the first month
reported the sale of 15,242 acres in McLean county at an aver-
age price of $9.97. In another year the company was aggres-
sively pushing the sale of its lands in all parts of the state. By
20 Chicago Weekly Democrat, June 23, 1855; Chicago Daily Democratic
Press, March 22, 1858.
88 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
1857 with its grant half sold the company had realized
$14,000,000. 21
Thousands of squatters who had developed improved farms
were found in southern Illinois on the lands along the Illinois
Central. The general assembly recommended to congress that
squatters on the federal domain be granted preemption rights
for a period of twelve months; the company, left to itself, pur-
sued a policy of similar generosity toward the bona fide settler.
In addition it extended long credits to settlers generally and
was lenient to purchasers who found themselves unable to
make their payments. 22
The speculator also had his innings in all this confusing
race for control of the soil. Thousands of acres in every
county remained the unimproved property of purchasers who
were holding them for a rise in value ; extensive feeling among
the settlers was aroused against these land monopolists, many
of whom were eastern capitalists. 23
The great bulk of the speculators, although they often
followed outside leadership, was found in the local residents
successful farmers, lawyers, business men, and politicians.
Governor French in his second term took advantage of the
renewed agitation in favor of the Illinois Central railroad to
buy up warrants and locate lands through a dozen friends and
agents all along the probable route. His interests were also
linked with the supporters of the Atlantic and Mississippi, a
group of southern Illinois democratic leaders, who, while
pressing its claim before the people and in the legislature,
avidiously bought land about the strategic points on the line.
Uri Manly, one of them, after having waited twenty years for
such an opportunity, was fortunate enough to secure the land
at the intersection of the Illinois Central and this proposed
railroad; when the legislature refused a charter in 1851 and
21 Beardstown Gazette, July 30, 1851; Peru Daily Chronicle, May 5, 1854;
Ottawa Free Trader, September 5, 1857.
22 Laws of 1851, p. 207-208; M. Brayman to Noah Johnston, November 4,
1852, in Illinois State Register, December 2, 1852; Chicago Press and Tribune,
March 18, 1859.
23 The Munn Illinois Land Company, an eastern concern, declared a divi-
dend of $15 a share in 1851. Cairo Sun, May 22, 1851. The proverbial acumen
of poets was proved by William Cullen Bryant, who sold his holding on the
Rock Island railroad for $10 per acre shortly before it rose in value to many
times that amount. Boston Post clipped in Illinois State Register, June 29, 1854.
FARMING AND BANKING 89
again in 1852, he complained that he had lost a $15 accretion
on two pieces of 4,000 acres in Effingham county, besides 2,300
acres in Clark county. "I had made a town a city where
our Road & the Central crossed," he lamented to his colleague
in misfortune, Governor French. 24
With the rapid disappearance of the public domain and
with the inflated prices of speculative holdings, agrarian move-
ments began to take form in Illinois. Many citizens came to
decry, with John Wentworth of the Chicago Democrat, the
trend toward " the tenant system, under which Republicanism
is impossible. This system," they held, "tends to separate
classes in society; to the annihilation of the love of country;
and to the weakening of the spirit of independence." 25 Already
by 1850 the landless were the most numerous class of people
in Chicago. The remedy agreed upon by all advocates of
land reform was the free grant of homesteads to actual settlers,
thus taking from the capitalist his last stronghold, the monop-
oly of the soil. Such reformers were numerous within the
ranks of both political parties; in his zeal for his party, how-
ever, the whig politician often claimed a homestead policy as
" true whig policy" while the democrat claimed the same honor
for his party.
Radical land reformers, who were usually also aggressive
abolitionists as well, spurned the advance of the old political
parties and organized independent land reform associations,
carrying on an aggressive propaganda of their own. In 1848
the "national reformers" held a national industrial congress
and chose as their presidential candidates, Gerrit Smith of
New York, and William S. Wait of Illinois. In the fall of
that year the "national reformers" held a meeting in Chicago
in which they repudiated the newly organized free soil party
and its reform platform because it failed to assert "man's
inherent and inalienable right to a limited portion of the soil
upon which he subsists " as the real and only ground of " free
soil." Later, however, when Van Buren placed himself on sat-
isfactory ground and the free democracy of Chicago adopted
24 Uri Manly to French, September 3, October 27, December 17, 1851,
January 29, March 2, 1852, French manuscripts; see also French manuscripts
for 1850 and 1851.
25 Chicago Democrat, January 22, March 28, 29, 31, 1848.
90 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
" the true free soil principle," they were able to effect a working
agreement. They immediately undertook an active campaign
which culminated in an Industrial Congress at Chicago* on June
6 and 7, 1850, which adopted resolutions offered by H. Van
Amringe, a prominent lecturer and reformer, declaring that
" the free land proviso would everywhere, on the cotton planta-
tions of the South, and in the cotton factories of the North,
unite all lovers of freedom and humanity, against all haters of
freedom and humanity, and would strip the question of liberty
of all prejudices resulting from sectional and partial agitation."
These reformers saw the folly of fighting an autocracy that
dominated the southern half of the nation while supporting in
their own midst, " Factory Lords, Land Lords, Bankers, Spec-
ulators, and Usurers." 26
Independent thinkers like John Wentworth had always seen
the issue of land monopoly behind the slavery question; from
this point of view the Wilmot proviso was "but a modifica-
tion of the great principle, that the earth was given for the
uses of man ; and that, like the other essential elements to exist-
ence, no portion of its surface should be the subject of monop-
oly." For that reason he was a supporter of the preemption
policy and in the spring of 1848 introduced into congress a
resolution for the extension of three years of the time for pay-
ment under the preemption laws; later he presented many
Illinois petitions for land reform and on January 22, 1850,
laid before the house a resolution passed by the lower house of
the Illinois legislature in favor of a homestead law. 27
With this official sanction from the most representative
body in Illinois, it was now obvious that a radical reform had
become popular. Douglas had introduced a homestead bill on
December 27, 1849, and defended it with eloquence; Richard-
son and other members of the Illinois delegation also accepted
the principle of free grants to actual settlers and were kept
busy presenting memorials of Illinoisians in its favor. When
therefore, in the congressional campaign of 1850 the "Na-
26 Gem of the Prairie, May 20, July i, 22, October 7, 14, 21, November 25,
December 9, 1848. Wait, however, declined the nomination and was made
elector at large on the ticket of the " national reformers." Chicago Democrat,
November 3, December 12, 1848, June 7, 8, 17, 1850.
27 Ibid., November 20, 1848 ; Congressional Globe, 31 congress, i session, 302.
FARMING AND BANKING 91
tional Reform " Association of Chicago questioned the various
candidates on their attitude toward land reform it received
without exception favorable replies. 28 In 1851, the general
assembly adopted a joint resolution urging congress to enact a
homestead law. With another land reform convention at
Chicago on October 13, 1851, the reformers had completed
their work and were gratified to x see their views adopted by
the lower house at Washington. In the senate the fight con-
tinued without success until June, 1860, when the law was
blocked by the veto of President Buchanan. With the organ-
ization of the republican party and the incorporation of a
homestead plank in its platform, the republicans claimed spe-
cial consideration as the champions of the homestead bill;
challenging the devotion of their opponents on all occasions,
they were able to make effective use of Buchanan's veto as an
argument in favor of the election of Lincoln in the campaign
of 1860. On the basis of their success they were able to carry
out their promises in the homestead law of 1862.
Railroad construction and the land boom of the fifties had
an important effect upon the state of the public treasury. At
the beginning of this period the state, with an indebtedness of
$16,661,795, was still virtually bankrupt and unable to pay
the accumulated and long overdue interest. Under the refund-
ing act of 1847, however, the conversion of the internal
improvement indebtedness was started under the direction of
Governor French, and confidence in the credit of the state
began to develop in the financial world. The constitution of
1848 placed the state on a basis of strict economy in the matter
of salaries and general expenditures and article fifteen author-
ized a two mill tax to be applied to the state indebtedness.
With the authorization of the Illinois Central and various
other railroads, moreover, Illinois stock began to take a rapid
rise. New York bondholders for some time urged that the
Central road be constructed by a company composed of bond-
holders under special favors from the state. 29 The last install-
28 Ibid., 31 congress, i session, 87, 262-267; Chicago Democrat, Novem-
ber 4, 1850.
29 Aurora Beacon, September 26, 1850; Beardstown Gazette, April 30, 1851;
James Holford to French, December 10, 1850, William Osman to French, April 29,
1851, French manuscripts.
92 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ment of the $1,600,000 canal loan and interest was paid in
October, 1853, when the canal passed to the exclusive direction
of the state. The state debt had just reached its maximum
and was officially reported at $16,724,177. The two mill
tax was being applied to the payment of interest on outstand-
ing bonds; a. proposed constitutional amendment to appro-
priate it to the purchase of state bonds failed of receiving pop-
ular ratification in November, 1852. Matters improved, how-
ever, so that internal improvement bond quotations began to
approach par. In December, 1855, the first payment of the
state's share of seven per cent of the profits of the Illinois
Central railroad was made with the sum of $29,000. By 1859,
certain Illinois indebtedness was commanding a premium of
three per cent in certain markets, and it was no longer found
necessary to collect the two mill tax.
In 1859 the fraudulent redemption of nearly a quarter
million of 1839 ninety-day canal scrip was discovered, and
ex-Governor Matteson was found to be the chief beneficiary.
Inasmuch as he had been chairman of the senate finance com-
mittee before his election as governor in 1852, it was hard
to prove his plea of ignorance of the fraud involved. He was
allowed, however, to give security for refunding the money
to the state within a period of five years.
The same year witnessed certain irregularities that led
to the resignation of Secretary of Treasury James Miller;
simultaneously Governor Bissell under a misapprehension of
the law ordered the funding of a portion of the Macallister
and Stebbins bonds, but his mistake was discovered in time
to withdraw his action without injury to the state. With the
public finances rapidly attaining bedrock soundness, therefore,
these frauds and charges of frauds became subjects of political
discussion.
One obstacle to the free and untrammelled development
of the state along economic lines was the absence of adequate
banking facilities. The need of capital was a fundamental
factor in the plans of the merchant, manufacturer, or farmer
for expansion. The legal rate of interest was advanced to ten
per cent in 1849, hut little money could be had even at that
price. Money handlers were able to violate the law with
FARMING AND BANKING 93
impunity and demand fifteen, twenty, and even twenty-five per
cent. Little specie appeared in circulation, and the uncertain
paper money of foreign banks that is, of banks organized in
other states had the field. Agricultural and business prog-
ress naturally was held back by these conditions.
Yet the outlook in 1848 was anything but encouraging.
The attempt to extend the charter of the State Bank for two
years had failed in 1848 ; and arrangements were made to wind
up the affairs of that institution a result that called forth
from the Illinois democracy, the political majority, a sigh of
relief that suggested vivid recollections of fingers burned in
the banking debauch of the thirties. Although the bank demo-
crats were evident in the commercial districts of northern Illi-
nois, democratic leadership insisted that banks and the bank-
ing issue be relegated to oblivion to save the party from their
contaminating influence; a hard money policy was defined as
an essential test of genuine democracy. Whig politicians shortly
undertook to make their party the distinctive champion of the
banking facilities for which the business interests clamored;
this alignment stood out in the election of the constitutional
convention and in the discussions of the banking issue in that
body.
When the new constitution was drafted, though every
attempt to secure a constitutional prohibition against banking
failed, an article shaped by radical anti-bank democrats was
adopted which required every bank charter authorized by the
general assembly to be submitted first to the people for their
acceptance or rejection.
This was an ironclad guarantee against special legislation
in the interest of favored business interests; at the same time
it conveyed to bank advocates the hint that they might secure
their ends in a general banking system such as might parallel
the "free" banking systems recently inaugurated by New
York, Ohio, and other states. From this point of view the
bank forces hailed the adoption of the new constitution as a
favorable indication of popular acceptance of their viewpoint.
Soon an active campaign was launched; the Chicago Board of
Trade framed a bill for the authorization of general banking
privileges to be submitted to the legislature, while the business
94 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
interests in other cities organized meetings to agitate in favor
of banks. 30
The faithful and vigilant sentinels on the democratic watch-
towers of Illinois sounded the warning of this new danger.
The party, therefore, incorporated in its 1848 platform a plank
declaring " HOSTILITY TO A UNITED STATES BANK, AND ALL
KINDRED INSTITUTIONS, WHETHER OF A STATE OR A NATIONAL
CHARACTER, AUTHORIZED BY EITHER GENERAL OR SPECIAL
LAWS." The interests of Illinois were declared by downstate
democrats to be agricultural and not commercial. Governor
French in his message of January, 1849, expressed himself
explicitly and unreservedly against the introduction of banking
institutions ; and for a time the tide was stemmed. 31
Then began a war of words between the bank and anti-
bank forces, the one finding in the presence of banks the expla-
nation of every economic ill with which banking states were
afflicted, the other attributing the economic backwardness of
Illinois and the dullness of business to the absence of banking
facilities. Meantime, it was discovered that there was no
constitutional or legal provision against insurance companies
that might furnish money for loans and add to the facilities
for carrying on trade by issuing some form of evidence of
indebtedness as a circulating medium. The paper of the Wis-
consin Marine and Fire Insurance Company, an institution
located at Chicago and controlled by George Smith, had a wide
circulation in northern Illinois. Chicago business interests
considered the expediency of utilizing the Chicago Fire and
Marine Insurance Company to this end. Springfield inter-
ests advocated the establishment of a local company to supply
money to local borrowers. 32
This eagerness for paper currency stimulated the organi-
zation of unincorporated private banking companies whose
issues began to circulate at a variable discount. It also brought
into the state a flood of foreign paper: Ohio "red backs,"
30 Western Journal, 4:2iiff. ; Illinois State Register, May 5, December 29,
1848; Joliet Signal, January 2, 1849.
31 Illinois State Register, May 5, 1848; Joliet Signal, January 16, Feb-
ruary 27, 1849.
32 Chicago Democrat, February 19, April 19, May 8, December 6, 1849;
Illinois Journal, April 27, May n, 1850; Illinois State Register, June 21, 1849.
FARMING AND BANKING 95
Indiana " shinplasters," and all sorts of "rag" money of out-
side banks of unknown soundness. It was estimated that in
1850 St. Louis had a bank circulation of nearly half a million
dollars in Illinois, while the people of the state paid annually
in the form of interest not less than $600,000 of tribute money
to foreign financial institutions. 33
The laws of trade had proved stronger than the laws of
Illinois; as a result Illinois suffered from all the evils of a
paper circulating medium without receiving any of the benefits
which banks conferred. "The present system has driven capi-
talists from the State to invest their wealths elsewhere, and
domestic enterprise hobbles about on crutches, being forced to
pay the unlicensed usurer twenty and twenty-five per cent,
interest, for the poor privilege of moving at a snail's pace,"
complained the spokesman of the bank forces. 34 " Since we
cannot prevent the bank paper of other States from flooding
ours," he reasoned, " and since we must pay so enormously
for its circulation, does not necessity and self-preservation call
upon us to doff our scruples about banking for the present
make our own Banks, use our own money, and pay the profit
to our own States." 35
The bank forces concentrated their energies on a plea for
a system of free banking that would provide a safe and reliable
currency by which every dollar issued would be secured by real
estate or other good, safe, and reliable property; a general
banking law similar to the one prevailing in New York was
urged. The issue was fought to a decision in the legislative
session of 1851, after a large number of bank men had been
elected to the general assembly. Governor French and down-
state democratic leaders threw their entire strength against
the movement; several professed anti-bank assembly men
from the northern counties, however, including E. B. Ames
and Peter Sweat, voted for the law because of the strong
33 Illinois Journal, January 3, October 12, December 19, 1850.
34 Rock Island Advertiser clipped in Illinois Journal, January 3, 1850.
35 Tazeivell Mirror clipped in ibid., October 12, 1850. Said the Journal,
November 23, 1850: "If banks are to furnish the medium of exchange of property,
we can see no reason why we should not have them under our control; and we
can see many reasons why such institutions would consolidate scattered funds,
collect capital, and thus furnish facilities for doing the heavy produce business
of our State."
96 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
demand of their constituents for banking facilities. Senator
Joel A. Matteson cast the deciding vote in the upper house
on the principle that it had become a question for the people
to decide. When the bank bill passed both houses it promptly
met the gubernatorial veto. Upon reconsideration, however,
the assembly overrode the suspensive veto of the governor
and enacted the measure over his head in the closing hours of
the session. 36
This law provided for the incorporation of banking asso-
ciations on a minimum of fifty thousand dollars of capital
stock. They were authorized to do a general banking business
and were to receive from the auditor circulating notes to the
market value of state or federal bonds deposited with him.
The prevailing uncertainty as to the stability of Illinois securi-
ties occasioned a discrimination against them in the require-
ment that they be listed at twenty per cent less than their
average market value. Banks were limited to seven per cent
interest on loans, three per cent less than the current rate. The
banks were to operate under the supervision of the auditor
and of three banking commissioners. 37
It remained for the measure, in accordance with the con-
stitution, to go before the people for their approval. A stir-
ring contest followed. Invoking the shade of Andrew Jackson,
democratic leaders fought the " hydra headed monster,"
throwing themselves in the way of " the great oligarchy of
money" that was said to rule Chicago. The New England
and New York elements in northern Illinois, however, had
brought with them preferences for banks which even local
democratic leaders could not defy. This fact came out clearly
in the canvass and proved the undoing of democratic leader-
ship. The election in November, 1851, returned a fifty-four
per cent vote in favor of the law: only four counties north of
Springfield went anti-bank, while the counties about Chicago
returned bank majorities of from eighty-five to ninety-five per
cent; southern Illinois, except the old whig strongholds, voted
overwhelmingly against the law. The democrats soon found
36 E. B. Ames to French, December 22, 1851, Peter Sweat to French, Decem-
ber 22, 1851, French manuscripts; Illinois Journal, February 12, 17, 27, 1851;
Laws of 1851, p. 163-175.
37 Ibid., p. 163 ff.
FARMING AND BANKING 97
themselves embarrassed by the question as to whether they
could still make hostility to banks a test of party orthodoxy. 38
A number of banks were promptly organized throughout
the northern part of the state under the law of 1851. The law
was so construed, however, as to result in two types of insti-
tutions: those engaged in a general banking business under
the supervision of the auditor and issuing non-secured notes,
and those depositing securities with the auditor and obtaining
notes for circulation. Only two banks issuing secured paper
were organized by the summer of 1852, so that secured bank
notes furnished but a small part of the circulating currency.
For this reason there was much complaint and considerable talk
of repeal in the session of 1853, the senate formally acting in
favor of a repeal measure. This caused a rush for bank
applications; within a few days twenty-seven were filed with
the auditor. At the end of 1852 the first bank in southern
Illinois was established at Belleville, St. Clair county; so
eagerly did this district, which gave the largest numerical vote
against the bank law, seek to embrace the opportunities created
by it that a few months later four other companies were organ-
ized in that county with an aggregate capital of eight and a
half millions, although none of these passed the stage of paper
projects. By 1854, however, the banking commissioners,
headed by ex-Governor French, reported only twenty-nine
banks operating under the law, ten of which were located in
Chicago, and two each in Springfield and Naperville, with other
cities supplied with a single institution; these had an author-
ized capital of seventeen millions and resources totalling over
six millions. Notes to the amount of over a million dollars
were issued during the first year of the general banking act.
They constituted, however, but a small fraction of the entire
circulating medium of the state. Illegal issues by both private
banks and certain of the newly authorized banking associations
together with the notes of foreign banks comprised the vast
38 Jolift Signal, September 9, 1851; W. Reddick to French, November 27,
1848, F. C. Sherman to French, December 6, 1848, E. B. Ames to French, Decem-
ber 16, 1851, William M. Jackson to French, January 2, 1852, French manuscripts.
William Reddick, Joel A. Matteson, Norman B. Judd, Plato, Charles V. Dyer,
John Hise, and Benjamin F. Hall were among the democratic bank men. ^Chicago
Democrat, December 3, 1851.
98 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
bulk. At the recommendation of Governor French and his
successor, Governor Matteson, the legislature undertook in
the supplementary act of 1853 to drive out all unauthorized
issues, whether domestic or foreign. This was successful in
eliminating the Illinois lawbreakers; but in spite of the drive,
paper of non-specie paying foreign banks continued in the field,
largely pandering to the demand for small notes which grew
out of the high premium on silver coins. In 1854, over two
and a quarter million secured notes were in circulation, but
these were estimated as furnishing only thirty pr cent of the
entire volume of circulation in Illinois. 39
The domestic issues, however, furnished a very reliable
currency 40 amply protected through the cautious policy of the
auditor in regard to the securities deposited with him. In the
fall of 1854 Illinois banks were put to their first test when
panic conditions began to appear in the west as a result of
overdevelopment in railroads. When Virginia and Missouri
bonds, which constituted two-thirds of the bank securities,
dropped several points below par, a general alarm seized the
holders of Illinois currency, especially of that based on Vir-
ginia and Missouri securities. The panic struck Chicago in
November; runs on various institutions commenced; thou-
sands of dollars of notes were presented for redemption; and
several banks were compelled to close their doors. In a few
weeks, however, after assurances by two of the bank commis-
sioners, the excitement subsided, although money continued to
be very tight. The auditor's report for December I, 1854,
showed three banks permanently closed by the panic; five
others still in a state of suspension were later forced into
liquidation under the supplementary act of i855. 41
By 1856 banking operations had expanded until $6,480,873
of notes were in circulation. Even then this paper constituted
39 Illinois Journal, February 12, 1853; Belleville Advocate, December 8,
1852, February 16, 1853; Illinois State Register, June 15, 1854; Bankers' Maga-
zine, 9:102-113. Many bankers preferred to circulate their notes outside of the
state in order to postpone the necessity of redeeming them; domestic needs,
therefore, had to be cared for largely by recognized foreign paper.
40 Thompson's Bank Reporter clipped in Ottawa Free Trader, May 20, 1854.
41 Alton Weekly Courier, November 23, 1854; Chicago Daily Democratic
Press, November 17, 1854; Free West, November 23, 1854; Illinois Journal,
November 24, 1854; Aurora Guardian, December 7, 1854; Bankers' Magazine,
9:822.
FARMING AND BANKING 99
but a minor part of the currency of Illinois. Much foreign
paper, especially the notes of Georgia banks, circulated in the
state. Several of the Georgia banks were institutions owned
by Chicagoans. George Smith had opened two banks in
Georgia to take advantage of the opportunity of circulating
paper unhampered by bond deposit restrictions and by limited
interest rates. Although bitterly attacked by regulation bank-
ers and by the journals of the state almost without exception,
Smith's Georgia operations had sufficient stability not only to
weather the storm of abuse but for a long time to thrive upon
it as an excellent advertising medium. The war on the
" Georgia red dogs and wild cats " took the form of pro-
longed runs on the bank of issue and of a boycotting agree-
ment in which the leading merchants and business men of
Chicago urged the banks to refuse to receive Georgia paper
on deposit. 42 Smith, however, held his own until declining
profits hastened his retirement in 1858.
The banking system was given a thorough overhauling in
an act of February 14, 1857, which provided for more ade-
quate regulation and at the same time sought to encourage
legitimate banking by increasing the legal rate of interest from
seven to ten per cent. This revision in part reflected the signs
of an approaching storm in the financial world. The warning
of 1854 had not stemmed the tide of overspeculation in the
west, nor had it pointed out the danger of overexpansion of
loans, discounts, and note issues, in the banking world. Two-
thirds of the securities of the stock banks consisted of the bonds
of Missouri, whose credit was now almost ruined by its wild
fling at internal improvements. All these factors undermined
the banking and currency situation in Illinois, and signs pointed
to a financial collapse. The state was saved, however, by the
solid foundations laid during the first six years under the bank-
ing act of 1851 and by the cooperation of the various forces
in the financial world in making the necessary adjustments.
The banks retired a part of their note issues and reduced the
42 Belleville Advocate, October 4, 1854. " George Smith ought to pay the
editors for abusing his bank of Atlanta. They have abused it into credit all
over the United States. It is current all over the Union." Chicago Weekly
Democrat, July 2, 1853 ; Rockford Republican, January 2, 1856; Andreas, History
of Chicago, i : 546, 547, 2: 617.
ioo THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
outstanding circulation by nearly a million; Chicago bankers
agreed to receive the notes of Illinois banks at par despite
steady depreciation. Auditor Jesse K. Dubois called for addi-
tional securities to cover the decline in the value of state bonds.
The action of St. Louis merchants in voting to reject all Illinois
currency offered at their counters caused general alarm, but
they were shortly induced to recall their decision and to accept
Illinois paper at a slight discount. 43
In this way Illinois was saved from the full effects of the
panic of 1857. Six banks out of fifty-four failed; but with a
single exception, all redeemed their notes without loss to the
holders. Business for a time came to a complete standstill in
Chicago, 117 establishments failing out of 1,350; in the rest
of the state, however, conditions were far from serious, with
199 failures out of n,459. 44 The early months of 1858
showed rapid recovery; but with a short grain crop in that
year, it remained for another twelvemonth to initiate the com-
plete restoration of normal conditions. The bank commission-
ers, reporting in January, 1859, proclaimed the fact that the
banking system had withstood the test of two trying years of
financial depression and was therefore entitled to public
approval. Governor Bissell subscribed to this fact in his mes-
sage, and the legislature on this ground acquiesced in the
decision to allow the system to stand without change. The
decade, therefore, gave the state the experience of passing
from a puerile hostility to banking institutions through a suc-
cessful experiment with the institutions of a complex economic
order. 45
43 Illinois State Journal, April i, 1857; Ottawa Republican, April 4, 1857;
J. K. Dubois to Trumbull, October 5, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts; Quincy Whig,
October 5, 1857; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, October 6, 9, 14, 1857; Cairo
Weekly Times and Delta, October 14, 1857.
44 Bankers' Magazine, 12 : 68 1.
45 Illinois State Journal, January 5, 1859; Dowrie, The Development of
Banking in Illinois, 131-158.
V. THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
IN THE closing decade of the ante-bellum period no polit-
ical issues remained vital enough to hold voters rigidly to
old party affiliations. In Illinois local issues had changed with
three decades of statehood; new problems in banking, railroad
development, and education scarcely permitted an alignment
that would coincide with old party divisions. In the main these
questions came to be settled on their merits exclusive of the
possibility of making political capital out of them. National
politics in spite of the senility of orthodox leaders and issues
was forced to furnish the chief basis of party alignment. An-
drew Jackson, the popular champion of western democracy,
had passed away without leaving any successor to continue the
old traditions in their former vigor. Surely President Polk
had not done so, nor was Franklin Pierce to meet with any
more success. The leadership of Stephen A. Douglas was an
acknowledged factor in Illinois but not in the nation at large.
Even this was more than any whig could claim. Henry Clay
had closed his career in a blaze of glory, not as a party chief-
tain, but as a national leader. No one fell a clear heir to his
mantle, not even Abraham Lincoln, the aggressive Illinois
orator who following Clay's death delivered the commemo-
rative eulogy in the statehouse at Springfield. 1 Lincoln, indeed,
was just reappearing from the obscurity forced upon him by
his unpopular opposition to the Mexican War.
Whiggery was now upon its deathbed; anaemic democracy,
desperately seeking a blood transfusion from political move-
ments of youthful vigor, hoped to save itself from a like fate.
The national bank issue was dead and buried; it was no longer
politic to resurrect it either as a Cerberus to protect the nation's
treasure or as a dragon to call forth a new American St. George.
The tariff was discussed by all in terms of the revenue needs
1 Illinois State Register, July 8, 1852.
102 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
of the government and the prosperity of American industry.
Land policy was debated only in reference to the great agrarian
reform demanded by the whole west to give land to the land-
less. Eyes were fixed on Washington, the federal capital, to
be sure, but largely to judge of the nearness of the political
storm that was gathering, a menace to all existing party lines.
Illinoisians watched, ready to take refuge under the new
standard of "liberty and union."
Before the crisis of 1850 the general desire of the north-
west that the new territories should not be disgraced by the
incubus of the enslaved African had expressed itself in an out-
burst of political independence which had threatened to arouse
the south, regardless of party allegiance, to battle in defense
of its institutions. The danger of disunion brought a reaction
in which zeal for liberty was replaced by an even keener devo-
tion to the union; even the professional politician decried that
agitation out of which he had hoped to secure so much profit
and sent forth the rally cry of loyalty to party.
This reaction was carried to completion in the course of
1851, undisturbed by the unexciting contests for city and county
offices. The new bank law which was submitted to the voters
for ratification aroused some democratic anti-bank prejudices.
Party activities that sought to defy the general lethargy were
directed toward the coming presidential and state election.
Democrats early began to discuss the relative merits of their
available candidates. Almost all were agreed upon Senator
Douglas for the presidency, so that livelier discussion took
place concerning the gubernatorial nomination. An array of
names was suggested including those of David L. Gregg of
Cook county, then secretary of state, Colonel John Dement of
Lee county, and Joel A. Matteson, a well-known politician and
contractor upon public works. 2 It was generally agreed, 3 that
the nominee of the party must be a democrat ready to eschew
with a holy abhorrence all Wilmot provisoism or free-soilism.
Others, in line with traditional democratic anti-bank doctrine,
held that the recent revival of the bank question also required
2 Matteson to French, November 18, December 15, 1851, French manuscripts.
3 Chicago Democrat, February 10, 1852, spoke for the few dissenters to this
policy.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 103
the old test of orthodoxy and that only anti-bank men ought to
be considered. 4 To the Egyptian democracy anti-Wilmot
provisoism and anti-bankism were cardinal principles. When
Dement, their early favorite, came out against the bank ques-
tion as a party issue, they abandoned him for Gregg, who
seemed to have a clean bill of health on both points. 5 North-
ern democrats, satisfied with the abortive death of an attempt
to apportion the state convention on the basis of the democratic
vote of 1848 as against total population, bided their time. 6
When the state convention opened at Springfield in April,
Gregg was easily the favorite candidate. For six ballots he
led the field; then his opponents began to concentrate on Matte-
son, whose strength grew until finally he was nominated on
the eleventh ballot. The ticket was completed by the selec-
tion of Gustave P. Koerner for lieutenant governor, Alexander
Starne for secretary of state, and Thomas H. Campbell for
auditor.
Steam roller tactics seemed to dominate the convention,
making possible the harmony that prevailed. All new business
had to pass through the hands of a special committee, so that
the introduction of various disorganizing resolutions was pre-
vented. This accounted for the silence of the convention on
the bank and slavery questions and explained the passage of
resolutions approving the democratic principles of '40, '44,
and '48, declaring for full obedience to the laws of the country,
especially the recent compromise legislation, and seriously
deploring all sectional agitation. 7 It was further agreed that
4 The new bank law submitted to voters for ratification in 1851 aroused
some democratic anti-bank prejudices but at the same time met with support
from large numbers of northern Illinois democrats, who saw no harm in
cooperation with whig bank men. [Lewiston] Illinois Public Ledger, clipped
in Chicago Daily Journal, March 18, 1851; Jonesboro Gazette, May 21, 1851;
Cairo Sun, December 4, 18, 1851.
5 Canton Weekly Register, January 24, 1852; Illinois Journal, January 7,
February 6, 1852; Breese to French, January 5, 17, 1852, French manuscripts.
6 Illinois State Register, February 5, March 4, 1852.
7 Ibid., April 22, 1852. There was only one attempt to disturb the prevailing
harmony; one of the southern delegates was prevailed upon to offer a set of
resolutions indorsing the compromise laws, declaring ineligible to seats any
person known to have been and still to be hostile to those measures and closing
by proclaiming John Wentworth a political renegade and expelling him from the
convention. Chicago Democrat, April 24, 28, 1852; Quincy Whig, April 26, 1852.
The resolutions had such a smack of Cook county factionalism, however, that they
were tabled by a large majority 1 .
104 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
all future state conventions ought to be based solely upon the
democratic vote of the state. 8
The nomination of Matteson caused much astonishment.
He was a capable business man, "a man of integrity, & a man
of property," but it was an unexpected victory for the bank
men and for the moderate antislavery democrats of northern
Illinois. 9 Matteson's private convictions on both points were
well known, although he was publicly noncommittal to a degree
very acceptable to the entire party. The shelving of Gregg,
however, caused such dissatisfaction as to require some expla-
nation, especially when a rumor began to circulate that he was
discarded because of his Roman Catholicism. The whig press
immediately attacked their opponents for such bigotry. 10
Gregg was, therefore, induced to write a letter in which he
denied the assumption that the convention had been actuated
by such motives; "it is doubtless true," he said, "that a few
men in the convention and out of the convention, sought to
stir up religious prejudices with a view of accomplishing my
defeat. But does that afford a reason for branding the con-
vention with improper motives? Are the democracy of Illinois
to be held responsible for the unworthy course of an inconsider-
able number of knaves or bigots ? " ai
The whigs were meantime reorganizing in an attempt to
" hold their own " in the coming contest: a tacit recognition by
party enthusiasts of the inroads time had made into the party's
strength; a grim and determined effort must be made to drive
away the growing apathy and despondency even among the
old stand-bys. A preliminary state convention was held at
Springfield, December 22, 1851, which nominated delegates
to the national whig convention and appointed a provisional
state central committee to cooperate with committees to be
appointed in every county. 12
8 Illinois Journal, April 29, 1852.
9 Illinois Slate Register, May 13, 1852; Illinois Journal, June 23, 1852;
Wentworth to French, March 5, 1848, French manuscripts.
10 Illinois Journal, April 24, May 15, 1852; Quincy Whig, April 26, May 3.
1852; Rockford Forum, May 12, 1852.
11 Gregg to Morris, May 12, in Quincy Whig, May 24, 1852; Illinois Journal,
May 26, 1852; Illinois State Register, May 27, 1852. " Governor" Zadoc Casey
had argued against Gregg on the score of his religious connections. Preston to
French, January 20, 1852, French manuscripts.
12 Quincy Whig, December 9, 30, 1851, April 12, 1852.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 105
The county conventions in the spring months developed
considerable whig enthusiasm and prepared the way for the
state and national elections. The party recovered from a
severe fright when Ninian W. Edwards, assemblyman from
Sangamon county, after abjuring his whiggery and resigning
his seat, was defeated for reelection by James C. Conkling,
the regular whig candidate. A state nominating convention
was held on July 7; its deliberations resulted in agreement
upon a ticket with Edwin B. Webb of White county for
governor, Colonel J. L. D. Morrison of St. Clair county
for lieutenant governor, Francis Arenz for treasurer, and
Charles A. Betts for auditor. 13
The presidential canvass was now well under way and
attention was diverted from the state contest. It seemed in
the spring of 1852 that the young and able Stephen A. Douglas
was to come into his own by receiving the highest honor within
the gift of his party, a nomination which was equivalent to an.
election. For a year the state democratic press and the rank
and file of the Illinois democracy had been shouting for Doug-
las. His rapid promotion from a "favorite son candidacy"
attested his leading place in the national councils of the party.
He was supported as emphatically "a national man;" "he
was born in New England and reared in New York, resides
in Illinois and was married in North Carolina, and it can be
truthfully said that he is connected with every section of the
Union." "Place of birth accidental; of rearing, arbitrary;
of immigration, choice; and of marriage only indicating his
love for the Union." 14 Such was the role assigned to him by
his enthusiastic followers.
Only one important democratic paper looked elsewhere for
a candidate. This was John Wentworth's Chicago Democrat,
which declared that Douglas was not the party's strongest
candidate. The antislavery predilections and radical western
sympathies of the editor made him favor a less orthodox can-
didate. He turned, therefore, to that great western figure,
13 Illinois Journal, April 9, 27, 30, May n, July 9, 10, 1852; Illinois State
Register, April 29, May 6, June 10, 1852; Quincy Whig, July 19, 1852; see also
Koerner, Memoirs, i : 587.
14 Freeport Prairie Democrat and Knoxville Journal clipped in Quincy
Whig, July 22, 1851.
io6 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, the veteran senator recently
denied reelection because of his bold stand against the southern
fire eaters. But the Cairo Sun and other journals speaking
for the southern democracy promptly declared that Benton
could command no real support south of Mason and Dixon's
line, where his "political trickery and faithlessness," and "his
pandering to the wishes of northern fanatics" was held in
abhorrence. This revelation with the astounding strength that
Douglas developed swept the Chicago Democrat into line.
Since Douglas as a young man was likely to be more liberal,
if not more radical, than some of the old fogies, Wentworth
was content. 15
This was precisely the strength of Douglas outside of
Illinois. He was looked upon as the candidate of "Young
America." An active group of young progressive democrats
were booming Douglas, using the Democratic Review as their
organ. 16 They defined the ideal candidate in terms of Ste-
phen A. Douglas. No broken-down politician would do, no
second or third rate general, no conservative representative
of "old fogyism." He must be a "statesman who can bring
young blood, young ideas, and young hearts to the councils of
the Republic." "Old fogyism," however, still sought to con-
tinue its leadership; the delegations sent to Baltimore showed
their skill in keeping young America out of control of the party
machinery. Cass and Buchanan were the chief contenders;
the former might easily have been nominated but for the cus-
tomary two-thirds rule. It was expected that the northwest
would go strongly for Douglas. The Illinois democracy was
urged by Douglas to be represented in force at Baltimore. 17
Only eleven delegates, however, presented themselves; while
they clung loyally to their favorite they received too little sup-
port from outside. Douglas started out with twenty votes,
only four from the west in addition to Illinois. His total
reached ninety-two on the thirty-first and thirty-second ballot,
when he was leading the field, but without the slightest pros-
pect of securing the nomination. His vote dropped off imme-
15 Chicago Daily Journal, April 29, May 6, 1851; Illinois State Register,
May 16, 1850; Cairo Sun, May 29, 1851; Chicago Democrat, March 31, 1852.
16 Democratic Review, 30: 12.
17 Douglas to Lanphier, February 25, 1852, Lanphier manuscripts.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 107
diately; on the thirty-fifth, delegations began to break for
Franklin Pierce, who received the nomination on the forty-
ninth ballot.
Douglas, ready to prove himself a good loser, gener-
ously accepted his defeat with good grace. In his congratu-
latory telegram to the convention he promised that Illinois
would give Pierce a larger majority than any other state in
the union. The promise, however, was not redeemed; Illinois
voters were too little content with convention politics to
acquiesce so easily in a victory over their favorite by a dark
horse. Instead there were wry faces all over the state and
disgusted ejaculations of the inevitable question, "Who is
Franklin Pierce?"
The general gloom did not disappear until it was demon-
strated in the national convention of the whigs that they were
to enter the campaign with little more harmony and enthusiasm.
Illinois whiggery, however, was less affected by factionalism
than many sections of the party. No marked preference for a
presidential candidate had been expressed; President Fill-
more's administration was generally indorsed even in county
conventions that recommended General Winfield Scott as their
first choice. At Baltimore the Illinois delegates, who had
generally supported Scott, rejoiced in his nomination. The
conservative whig forces had first insisted on the adoption of
a resolution acquiescing in the finality of the compromise meas-
ures; when after a stirring debate the vote was taken the
Illinois delegation supported the resolution, though by the
barest majority.
Approval of these proceedings was passed by the whig state
convention in July. The nomination of Scott was indorsed as
the first choice of the whigs of Illinois. 18 It seems to have been
the intention of the leaders to give the "finality" resolution
of the Baltimore platform the "goby." A ratifying resolu-
tion, however, was introduced which the convention did not
dare to reject; it was adopted because of the danger of alienat-
ing union men if defeated. One of the members proposed
that it be omitted in the published proceedings. It happened
that it did not appear in the official proceedings, when first
18 Illinois Journal, July 9, 10, 1852.
io8 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
published in the Illinois Journal, although they were later
reprinted in corrected and finished form. 19
Relatively slight success attended the determined effort of
whig politicians to arouse enthusiasm for the famous hero;
Scott clubs with their " soup songs " did not overcome an
apathetic indifference. Actual and open disaffection was rare.
Alfred Dutch, editor of the Chicago Commercial Advertiser,
was one of the few disgruntled Fillmore and Webster conserva-
tives. He had found himself outmaneuvered by his rival,
Charles Wilson, of the Chicago Journal, when a Scott delegate
was appointed to the national convention and when Cyrus
Aldrich was selected as congressional candidate for the Chicago
district. Condemning "the rotten machinery of primary elec-
tions and delegate conventions," he announced himself as an
independent candidate for congress, but failed to make much
of a race. 20
With the congressional nominations the troubles of the
democrats increased. In the Chicago district, because " Long
John " Wentworth seemed inclined to repudiate the Baltimore
platform, Ebenezer Peck bitterly fought his nomination. 21 In
the Alton district the rift threatened to be even more serious.
After William H. Bissell, the popular congressman, had an-
nounced himself a candidate for reelection, Sidney Breese
undertook to challenge his claims. Under the influence of
Breese a legislative caucus of half the members from the dis-
trict called a convention to meet at Carlyle, the town of Breese's
residence. This call received little publicity and did not give
Bissell time to return to exert a personal influence. Meantime
a new democratic journal, the Alton Courier, began to oppose
Bissell's nomination on the ground of his neglect of duties in
order to serve the Illinois Central railroad in the capacity of
attorney. The friends of Bissell consequently decided that
there was not time for an adequate representation at the Car-
lyle convention ; when that body met, therefore, it was a bobtail
meeting without delegates from certain counties. After a hard
19 Illinois State Register, July 15, 1852.
20 Joliet Signal, May 25, 1852; Chicago Democrat, September 22, October
13, 1852; Illinois State Register, September 30, 1852.
21 Illinois State Register, July 29, September 30, 1852; Chicago Democrat,
September 16, 1852.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 109
race, in which Breese led forthirty-one ballots, Philip B. Fouke
of Belleville was nominated, probably to pacify Bissell's friends
at that place. The latter, however, condemned the clique
management and scheming and brought out their favorite as
a bolter. The hot fight which ensued encouraged the whigs,
whose candidate, Joseph Gillespie, made an active canvass. 22
These local contests diverted attention from the presiden-
tial canvass, in which cudgels were being vigorously wielded.
Pierce was represented by his opponents as the bitter enemy
of the west: had he not turned his face against appropriations
designed to obtain for the people of the west secure harbors
and navigable rivers ? No river and harbor bills would become
laws in case Pierce were elected. 23 Such doctrine appealed to
southern Illinois, which insisted that all the benefits went to
the northern part of the state ; but along the upper Mississippi,
the Illinois, and the lake front, Wentworth and democrats
generally held that this was not a party issue and boldly cham-
pioned river and harbor improvements, ignoring the record of
the democratic candidate. Douglas sought to appeal to this
same demand on democratic ground; in his "tonnage duties"
scheme he proposed that the improvements be made by each
town and city on the basis of the duties collected, thus taking
the "pork barrel" out of politics. 24 Pierce and King were
pictured as the enemies of the landless poor, voting against a
homestead policy which was solidly supported by western
members of congress. 25 On the tariff question there was no
clear party issue; the democratic party, however, was desig-
nated as the " British party," because the English press was
favoring Pierce's election in order to connect a democratic
tariff with British interests. 26
Charges of nativism and abolitionism were the two effective
points scored against General Scott. On account of a " native
22 Belleville Advocate, July 21, 28, August 4, u, 18, September 8, October 20,
1852; Alton Courier, August 4, 5, 12, October n, 13, 14, 19, 23, 25, 29, 1852.
23 Illinois Journal, June 28, September 3, 22, 1852; Alton Telegraph, August
2, 17, 1852; Chicago Daily Journal, June 23, August 27, 1852.
24 Chicago Democrat, April 10, 1851; Chicago Daily Journal, October 2,
1851; Joliet Signal, September 21, 1851; Alton Courier, July 31, August 3, 6,
October 30, 1852; Jacksonville Constitutionist, November 6, 1852.
25 Illinois Journal, July 20, 1852; Chicago Daily Journal, August 27, 1852.
26 Illinois Journal, August 31, 1852.
no THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
American " letter he was charged with being tinctured with an
" ism " that would be fatal to the success of any candidate in
the northwestern states. Scott's supporters countermoved by
pointing out that Illinois democrats had considered Catholicism
sufficient to disqualify their leading candidate for the guber-
natorial nomination. 27 In the meantime German votes were
solicited on the strength of Koerner's name on the democratic
state ticket, while the nomination of Arenz made a similar
appeal for the whigs. Again, Scott was accused of abolition-
ism; it was pointed out .that Senator Seward of "higher law"
fame was his sponsor, that he was unwilling to give an unequiv-
ocal indorsement of the finality of the compromise measures.
Both parties in Illinois made a two-faced campaign. In the
upper counties they appealed to the free soil voters for their
support on strong antislavery grounds ; in Egypt they talked in
terms of the finality resolutions adopted by their respective
national conventions and deplored further agitation. The poli-
ticians in the central districts were called upon to show a skill
in political gymnastics for which many of them were too inade-
quately trained. It was no easy matter to know when to desig-
nate one's party as the true free soil party, or the true
compromise party, or when to keep mum on the slavery issue.
When in November the returns slowly came in, it was
found that Pierce and the state ticket had carried in Illinois
by over 15,000 votes, that the new legislature was overwhelm-
ingly democratic, but that the whigs, under the new redistrict-
ing of the state, had won three additional seats in congress. The
Illinois Journal, November 19, commenting on the election,
ascribed the result of the presidential contest to the disappoint-
ment of Fillmore's friends and to the disastrous effects upon
the whigs of the " isms " of the day. " Every ISM was against
them Free soilism, Abolitionism, Native Americanism, Se-
cessionism, Anti-Rentism, Free Public Landism, Intervention-
ism, Filibusterism in a word, all the little factions in the
country." This was doubtless true of the national election,
but in the northern districts of Illinois the whigs had profited
by their free soilism and their bids for antislavery votes. It
27 Illinois State Register, June 17, 1852 ff ; Illinois Journal, June 4, 12, 21,
1852.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT in
was there that the new seats in congress were gained; Richard
Yates was returned from the Springfield district over John
Calhoun, who suffered somewhat from democratic defection;
but Elihu B. Washburne's victory in the first district, Jesse O.
Norton's in the third, and James Knox's in the fourth were
made possible by free soil pledges, just as John Wentworth's
victory in the Chicago district was made possible by his anti-
slavery views. In the three new whig districts, the majorities
were less than the difference between the free soil vote for
president and for congressmen; only one had a whig presi-
dential plurality.
This election proved to be the fatal crisis for whiggery in
Illinois. It had never secured a strong hold on the pioneer
population of the western prairies. It was the party par
excellence of the wealth and intelligence, the respectability
and dignity of the state. Though it drew upon the industrial
dependents of whig employers, and upon the socially and polit-
ically ambitious elements of the population, it was unable to
develop real strength outside of industrial centers except as
it came forward with a "log cabin and hard cider" or "mili-
tary hero " appeal. 28 No new popular reform ever emanated
from the party to save it from withering decay under its proud
record for aristocratic conservatism.
The year, 1853, was a Y ear f general political calm the
lull before a storm. Political activity in Illinois was confined
to the general assembly, where the democrats outnumbered the
whigs nearly four to one. The whigs deplored blind servitude
to party leadership; even the democrats were not in a humor
to utilize their majority to draw party lines. Local and private
rather than general or party considerations determined the
issues presented and their fate at the hands of the legislators. 29
Liquor and bank legislation had their advocates and opponents.
Railroad development was the chief subject of discussion,
emphasizing the sectional interests within the state. 30 The
quarrels of rival sections even threatened for a time to jeopar-
dize Douglas' reelection to the United States senate by involv-
28 Brown to French, December 8, 1851, French manuscripts; Illinois State
Register, February 5, 1852.
29 Illinois Journal, January 8, 1853.
30 See chapter II.
ii2 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ing him in the quarrel over railroad policy. 31 The session had
no sooner closed before the disappointed faction began to
agitate a called session, which was approved or condemned, not
according to party lines, but according to local interests. When
Governor Matteson finally summoned the legislature the strug-
gle was resumed under the new nonpartisan alignment.
Democratic politicians concerned themselves chiefly with
the fruits of victory. The numerous spoilsmen engaged in a
mad scramble at Springfield to secure the indorsement of the
electoral college for their respective claims upon the Pierce
administration. Soon the obvious disappointment of the un-
successful began to find expression. Some voiced it calmly in
a demand for the popular election of postmasters. In Egypt,
however, feeling became intense because it was felt that Went-
worth and other northern politicians were dictating the appoint-
ments and that the plums were going to democrats of anti-
slavery proclivities. Many of the democratic papers of the
state were soon engaged in a guerilla warfare in which the
"old hunker" forces sought to drive the free soil element out
of the party. Meantime party interest waned to the extent
that in this " off " year a special judgeship election in Chicago
went to the whig candidate by default, in spite of the efforts
of the Democrat to get a candidate into the field. Critics of
the convention system began to appear, while some persons
condemned all party organization on the score of corrupting
and anti-republican tendencies. 32
Whig dissolution was well under way. In central and
southern Illinois, numbers of " silver grey " conservatives were
leaving the ranks upon the evidence that in the northern part
of the state most whigs were trying to effect a union with the
free soilers. This movement even split the party in some of
the northern counties, where " silver greys " refused to permit
such leadership. Other whig reorganization plans were in the
air, in Illinois as in other parts of the union. There was some
inclination to take up the temperance issue, while the more
vague "people's party" was the favorite dodge of many.
81 Chicago Weekly Democrat, January i, 1853.
32 Ibid., January 15, April 9, 23, 30, 1853; Illinois Journal, July 14, August
18, 1853 ; Southern Illinoisan clipped in Alton Courier, August 12, see also May
10, 1853; Joliet Signal, September 6, 1853, February 7, 1854.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 113
Democratic leaders naturally welcomed this opportunity to
whip party laggards into line and played up these tendencies to
revive the old fear of the opposition. 33
It was into this atmosphere of party disorganization that
Douglas exploded the issue that killed off the whig party and
left the democratic ranks rent in twain. Almost without warn-
ing came the crash as the territorial issue was launched in a
form more insidious than had ever appeared in American poli-
tics. The land across the Missouri river was still the hunting
ground of the American redskin, but emigrants from Illinois
and neighboring states were beginning to pour in to dispute
their rights. Douglas now proposed to open up the territory
of Nebraska to all settlers to the Yankee pioneer of the
north and northwest, to the immigrant from European oppres-
sion, and to the southern planter with his drove of ebony-hued
retainers. Proclaiming the broad principle of local self-
government, of popular sovereignty, he hoped to ignore a
solemn pact of nearly a quarter century's standing which dedi-
cated to freedom the very territory into which he now sought
to establish an unqualified " open door."
The possibility of such an issue was foreseen two months
before Douglas' famous report on the Nebraska situation. A
government diplomatic agent had been sent in to arrange
treaties with the Indians to secure their lands, but he seemed
to procrastinate and merely reported the Indians ready to sell
out. A shrewd observer saw in the situation the reflection of
a heated contest between two Missouri rivals, ex-Senator Ben-
ton, the champion of westward expansion on free soil, and
Senator Atchison, the proslavery fire eater, who was anxious
to prevent the growth of the political strength of the north.
But the quarrel was now in danger of assuming " such a degree
of importance as to threaten a renewal in Congress, with all
its fury, of the * Wilmot Proviso' agitation which it was hoped
was settled by the compromise measures of i85<D." 34
The question of the origin of the repeal of the Missouri
compromise is a controverted one. Senator Douglas is looked
33 Aurora Guardian, October 12, 19, 1853; Joliet Signal, October 18, 1853;
Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 23, 1853.
84 Ibid., November 12, 1853.
n 4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
upon by orthodox historians as the responsible party, although
they differ as to his motive : did he act on the high and broad
ground of principle the principle of local autonomy, of
popular sovereignty; was he, because of his presidential aspira-
tions, throwing out a sop to the south; or, because of his
interest in and zeal for a transcontinental railroad, was he
anxious to see the new territory opened to railroad develop-
ment under any form of organization which could pass both
houses of congress, particularly the senate? 35 Another view
of the matter is that Senator Atchison of Missouri is entirely
to be credited with the authorship of the repeal, with Douglas
nothing more or less than his tool. 36
In the fall of 1853 Douglas returned to Washington after
a summer abroad and immediately took up the political prob-
lems he had temporarily laid aside. While analyzing the work
which would come before the session of congress to meet in
December he wrote his well-known letter of November 1 1 to
the editors of the Illinois State Register. 37 In this letter he
first disposed of rumors concerning his presidential candidacy.
Stressing the obligations that were due to the party in its "dis-
tracted condition," in order to secure the consolidation of its
strength and the perpetuity of its principles he waived aside all
talk of the coming contest and declared his intention of remain-
ing entirely noncommittal.
In this announcement he let fall the mysterious statement:
" I think such a state of things will exist that I shall not desire
the nomination." What, then, did this mean? The issues
that would require attention were tariff reduction " to a legiti-
mate revenue standard," the river and harbor question, which
he proposed to solve by a well-devised system of tonnage duties,
and the Pacific railroad, which he felt the federal government
could aid only by a land grant modelled after the Illinois
Central precedent.
No mention was made of the organization of Nebraska
territory or of popular sovereignty. Does this silence warrant
36 Hodder, " The Genesis of the Kansas-Nebraska Act," Wisconsin State
Historical Society, Proceedings, 60:69-86.
36 Ray, Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
37 Douglas to Walker and Lanphier, November n, 1853, Lanphier manu-
scripts.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 115
the conclusion that Douglas was not alive to the significance
of the territorial issue in its new form? This is scarcely pos-
sible inasmuch as the organization of Nebraska had been
repeatedly before congress and had been a leading question
in the last session, when Douglas, as chairman of the senate
committee on territories, had exerted his influence in favor of
the proposed legislation. 38 Letters may have gone forward
to his confidants at Springfield taking note of the territorial
issue. At any rate, the editors of the State Register were able
on December 16 to publish an editorial condemning the agita-
tion in the south for the establishment and in the north for the
prohibition by congress of slavery in the new territory. " The
territories should be permitted to exercise, as nearly as prac-
ticable, all the rights claimed by the states, and to adopt all
such political regulations and institutions, as their wisdom may
suggest. This liberty is calculated to attach them to the Union.
We therefore hope that no slavery provisos will
be attached to any territorial bill." 39 By this time a Nebraska
bill had been introduced by Senator Dodge of Iowa and re-
ferred to the committee on territories; inasmuch, however, as
the measure was referred on the afternoon of the fourteenth,
the interval was not sufficiently great for Douglas to react on
the bill and influence the editorial cited if he had waited for
the measure to reach his hands. The editors, moreover, would
have realized the danger of embarrassing the senator, whose
confidence they enjoyed, if they had attempted to formulate
a policy for themselves in the absence of some statement from
Douglas. It seems, therefore, that an opinion must have
developed in his mind at a rather early date and that the
editors of the Register were promptly informed of his views.
This evidence reduces the possibility that outside influence,
whether from Senator Atchison or from some other source,
directly influenced Douglas in reaching this decision; it elimi-
nates almost entirely the element of deliberate presidential
ambitions as the motive. Douglas had, in a spirit of oppor-
tunism, resurrected an old principle which accorded with his
38 Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas, 226, 228 ; Ray, Repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, 186; Congressional Globe, 32 congress, 2 session, 1116-1117.
39 Published in the weekly issue of December 22, 1853. Professor Allen
Johnson does not distinguish between the different parts of the weekly issue.
n6 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
desire to see Nebraska thrown open to settlement and to rail-
road development and to a practical experiment in the realm
of this much flaunted principle of popular sovereignty. Thus
it was that Douglas and Atchison actuated by different motives
worked side by side lending each other aid and comfort in
their efforts to reach a common goal.
Douglas made his report on January 4, 1854, presenting
the bill in a somewhat amended form. The purpose was to
apply the principles of the compromise measures of 1850 to
the new territory of Nebraska. Douglas, speaking for the
committee, held that the Nebraska country occupied " the same
relative position to the slavery question, as did Mexico and
Utah, when those territories were organized." Inasmuch,
therefore, as the validity of the Missouri compromise restric-
tion was seriously questioned by eminent statesmen, without
attempting to affirm or repeal that restriction as the matter in
controversy, the report held that the principles of 1850 ought
to be carried into operation; the bill, accordingly, provided in
the language of the Utah and New Mexico acts: "And when
admitted as a State or States, the said Territory, or any part
of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without
slavery, as this Constitution may prescribe at the time of their
admission." "In order to avoid misconstruction" the famous
twenty-first section was attached to the bill as the result of
an eleventh hour decision by Douglas. 40 It specified the prin-
ciples of the compromise measures, which were to be applied
in this new legislation, particularly "That all questions per-
taining to slavery in the Territories and in the new States
to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the
people residing therein, through their appropriate repre-
sentatives."
This section was always interpreted by Douglas as having
the effect of repealing by supersedure the Missouri compro-
mise line of 1820. In this evasive way, purporting to stand
for a great principle, he was prepared to wipe out that com-
promise which in 1849 ne na d formally declared to the Illinois
legislature had "become canonized in the hearts of the Amer-
ican people, as a sacred thing, which no ruthless hand would
40 Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas, 232-233.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 117
ever be reckless enough to disturb." 41 There were others,
however, both friends and enemies of the proposition, who
desired a less ambiguous reference to the legislation of 1820
and who prepared to compel Douglas to come into the open.
Senator Dixon of Kentucky on January 16 moved an amend-
ment which forced Douglas' hand. Under the pressure of
southern democratic leaders, Douglas prepared amendments,
for which as a party and administration measure he secured
the approval of President Pierce ; they provided for two organ-
ized territories, Kansas and Nebraska, in which, it was an-
nounced, the prohibition of slavery in the act of 1820 was
specifically "declared inoperative and void; it being the true
intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any
Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domes-
tic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution
of the United States." 42
For this measure Douglas waged a brilliant fight upon the
floor of the senate, aided in the house by his trusted lieutenant,
William R. Richardson, of the Quincy district of Illinois, who
now occupied Douglas' old post of chairman of the house
committee on territories. Honors were high for Illinois, if
with all the seeds of agitation that it sowed, the Kansas-Ne-
braska act can be looked upon as bestowing honor. Little
was said by Senator Shields, Douglas' colleague, or by the
Illinois democratic delegation in the house. Wentworth, who
opposed the measure, but was so dazed by it as to be unable
to determine its party effect, remained silent; his journal, the
Chicago Democrat, did not commit itself against the bill until
the issue of March 1 1, when it credited Douglas with a sincere
and consistent devotion to the doctrine of the Nicholson letter.
Douglas was at his best when, in a brilliant speech on
March 3, he closed the debate in the senate by summing up the
arguments in favor of the bill. He courageously and fairly met
the thrusts of his opponents and cleared the way for giving the
measure a place in a long series of struggles for the American
principle of self-government, of popular sovereignty. "This
41 Illinois State Register, November 8, 1849.
42 Statutes at Large, 10:277-290.
n8 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
was the principle upon which the colonies separated from the
crown of Great Britain; the principle upon which the battles
of the Revolution were fought, and the principle upon which
our republican system was founded."
None of the Illinois delegation signed Chase's appeal of
the "independent democrats" against the Kansas-Nebraska
bill. The northern districts were represented by whigs except
for Wentworth from Chicago. The Egyptian representatives
were party regulars ready to take orders from the adminis-
tration all except William H. Bissell from the Alton and
Belleville district. He was firmly opposed to the measure,
but did not attempt to participate in the attack upon it. When
a final vote was reached in the house on May 22, Wentworth
went on record with the four whig congressmen, Elihu B.
Washburne, Jesse O. Norton, James Knox, and Yates, as
unwilling to follow Douglas in his new lead. Colonel Bissell
was confined to his room by illness, but authorized Went-
worth to state that had he been present, he would have voted
against the bill; as it was, if his vote could bring about its
defeat, he was ready to be carried to the house on a cot to
cast it. William A. Richardson, Willis Allen of the Cairo
district, and James C. Allen of the seventh, cast their votes
in favor of the bill. 43 The house vote, therefore, would seem
to indicate that Illinois was not ready to accept the new
Douglas doctrine with all that it implied.
Douglas, however, had declared in one of his speeches that
there was a universality of appeal in the principle of the
Kansas-Nebraska act that would make it " as popular at the
North as at the South, when its provisions and principles shall
have been fully developed and become well understood." 44 If
this were true there should have been no question as to Illi-
nois, a border state, with a large southern population, trained
to follow the lead of the " little giant." Yet there were signs
that the adverse vote in the house spoke more correctly for
the state than did the two senators that Douglas in the role
of prophet was doomed to disappointment.
43 Alton Courier, June 9, 1854; Cairo City Times, June 21, 1854; House
Journal, 33 congress, i session, 919-920.
44 Congressional Globe, 33 congress, i session, appendix, 338.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 119
The Illinois State Register and the Quincy Herald were
the only papers to come out with a prompt indorsement. The
Register followed up the editorial of December 16, 1853,
with careful explanations of all the forces and principles
involved. 45 The Quincy Herald, zealously hailing Douglas
as the real author of the compromise of 1850, commended the
"sacred" principle for which he stood, "one that lies at the
root of all governments founded upon the maxim that the
people are the true and rightful source of all political power." 46
It labored to show that slavery could never go into Kansas
and that the measure was one to extend freedom, not slavery.
The Peoria Press, Eastern Illinoisan, and St. Clair Weekly
Tribune next entered the thin ranks of active Nebraska sup-
porters. Other of the party journals merely acquiesced in
the new test of party orthodoxy and allowed Douglas to
defend his policy in their columns by printing his speeches.
When at length the measure was enacted into law, the Joliet
Signal abandoned a colorless support to break out in rejoicing
at its triumph. 47 The Cairo City Times was aroused to declare :
" The Constitution has been vindicated, and the rights of man
reasserted." 48
The immediate response of the whig opposition in Illinois
to the introduction of the Nebraska bill was a shout of protest.
Led by their central organ at Springfield, the Illinois State
Journal, they spoke in no uncertain tone. Referring to the
reopening of the slavery agitation, the Journal on January 13
declared: "to deliberately raise the flood-gates of those old
damned up waters, because Mr. Douglas wants to be Presi-
dent, is too much of an infliction for the most forebearing
patience." The Chicago Tribune claimed that Douglas' propo-
sition put an end to the disposition of citizens to pay passive
obedience to the fugitive slave law: "the violators of the
Missouri Compromise had forfeited all right to appeal to
law to sustain them." The Alton Telegraph declared that
45 Illinois State Register, January 19, 26, February 2, 1854 et seq.
46 Quincy Weekly Herald, January 30, see also January 16, February 6, 20,
27, March 6, 27, 1854, et seq.
47 St. Clair Weekly Tribune, March 8, April 22, 1854; Illinois State Register,
February 16, 23, 1854; Morris Gazette clipped in ibid., March 2, 1854; Ottawa
Free Trader, February n, 1854; Joliet Signal, March 7, May 30, 1854.
48 Cairo City Times, May 31, 1854.
120 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Douglas had " sprung a mine which will forever blast all his
presidential aspirations and cripple his political power." 49
Neutral journals took up the hue and cry. The Canton
Register, March 2, announced its regret " that a Senator from
our own State should exhibit such recklessness in regard to
public feeling and public peace, and such a want of judgment
and forethought as has been exhibited by Senator Douglas in
this case." 50
More significant, however, were the announcements from
democratic journals that they could not follow Douglas in his
new lead. Some came out after a considerable delay in which
the full consequences of political heresy were considered. The
Chicago Democrat waited until March 1 1 to express an hon-
est difference of opinion with Douglas. When the measure
passed, however, the editor declared with feeling: "The wall
of ' compromises ' has been broken down the ' finality ' is final
no more the 'wind has been sown' and it may be that the
sowers shall reap the whirlwind." 51 The Alton Courier pub-
lished the documents in full and the speeches of Douglas,
Seward, and Everett in its successive issues from February 13
to March 4; then in a facetious article on April 1 1 it stated its
refusal to be committed on the Nebraska question; but finally,
after the passage of the bill, it made the unequivocal declara-
tion: "It sanctions what we recognize as a great principle,
but our objection is that in giving this sanction, it opens the
door for a great outrage upon human rights, the introduction
of slavery into Territory now free, and which we would be
glad to have ever remain so." 52 The Belleville Advocate
showed the inconsistency of Douglas' position on the Missouri
compromise and the extent of the opposition to his new policy. 53
Even the Chester Herald and the Greenville Journal came out
in opposition in the more truly Egyptian atmosphere of those
two towns. The Urbana Union had spoken out with remark-
49 Illinois State Register, February 2, 1854; Chicago Tribune clipped in
ibid., March 3, 1854.
50 Canton Weekly Register, March 2, June i, 22, 1854; the Bloomington
Pantograph, however, deplored the vituperative abuse of Douglas and declared
that the logic lay in his course, ibid., March 9, 1854.
51 Chicago Weekly Democrat, May 27, 1854.
52 Alton Courier, May 24, 1854.
53 Belleville Advocate, March i, 8, April 5, 26, 1854.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 121
able promptness; on January 26 it questioned the ability of
Douglas to settle this matter against all traditions since 1787.
A few weeks later it frankly declared the introduction of the
new issue "a very wrong and impolitic act unworthy of the
head and heart of our distinguished Senator," and prepared
to wage war on his bill. 54 At the same time the Rock River
Democrat and Galena Jeffersonian announced themselves out
of sympathy with Douglas in his course and washed their hands
of all support of such demagogical proceedings. The Aurora
Guardian protested: "It is scarcely a wonder that the people
are arising in their majesty to protest against the Bill of Sen-
ator Douglas which bids African slavery welcome to the Ter-
ritory of Nebraska, when it is considered that the boundaries
include an area equal to ten States of the size of New York."
"As a bid for the Presidency, Douglas introduces this fire
brand." 55
All this opposition was contrary to the belief of Douglas
that he had applied a principle which would make the party
" stronger than ever " because " united upon principle." " The
principles of this bill will form the test of Parties, and the
only alternative is either to stand with the Democracy or to
rally under Seward, John VanBuren & Co." 56
The official expression of the state through the general
assembly, however, was more favorable to Douglas' course.
Early in February, at the "little giant's" orders, it was later
charged by Lincoln, resolutions indorsing the Nebraska bill
were introduced by Senator Omelveny to whip the lukewarm
and recalcitrant democrats into line. Inasmuch as it was rep-
resented as a. mere vote of confidence in the two Illinois
senators, the resolutions passed with only a handful of demo-
cratic votes in opposition. In the senate the vote of 14 to 8
found five democrats, James M. Campbell, Burton C. Cook,
Norman B. Judd, Uri Osgood, and John M. Palmer voting
with the three whigs in the negative; in the house eight demo-
crats, thirteen whigs, and one free soiler went on record as
opposed to the thirty-three democrats and three whigs who
54 Urbana Union, February 16, 23, June i, 1854.
55 Rock River Democrat, February 14, 21, 1854; Galena Jeffersonian clipped
in Belleville Advocate, March 8, 1854; Aurora Guardian, February 16, 23, 1854.
56 Douglas to Lanphier, February 13, 1854, Lanphier manuscripts.
122 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
approved the resolutions adopted by that body, while thirteen
democrats and five whigs comprised the list of those not voting.
Many an assemblyman, with the rising storm of opposition
and agitation, came shortly to regret his vote in favor of
the resolutions; John Reynolds, "the old ranger," publicly
recanted his vote. 57
The Kansas-Nebraska measure was from the start the
subject of heated discussion and angry controversy throughout
the state. Douglas was burned in effigy on the streets of his
home city and huge anti-Nebraska mass meetings were held
in Chicago, Ottawa, Rockford, Alton, and Belleville. Although
the Nebraska forces countermoved by attempting similar
demonstrations in favor of the measure, it was without great
success.
The pulpit burst out in wrath against this great assault
on freedom; a protest signed by five hundred clergymen of
the northwest denounced Douglas for his "want of courtesy
and reverence toward man and God." 58 Three preachers in
the legislature, to be sure, supported the Nebraska resolutions
and the clergy of Egypt were but little affected; but twenty-
five Chicago ministers met in March to protest against the
Nebraska bill, while Colonel Bissell on April 18 presented
in congress the remonstrance of S. Y. McMasters and nine-
teen other clergymen of Alton against the repeal of the Mis-
souri compromise, and the Reverend W. D. Haley made the
chief address of the Alton anti-Nebraska meeting of June 2. 59
John Mason Peck, the sage of Rock Spring, held that, while
there was a general misunderstanding, among the clergy of the
north concerning the sacred character of the Missouri com-
promise, the Nebraska act was "unwise, uncalled for and ill-
timed, with a direct tendency .... to revive all the
sectional jealousies, strife, disunion, and Abolitionism, and
even much more than existed in i85O." 60
67 Works of Lincoln, 2:245; Chicago Weekly Democrat, March n, 1854;
House Journal, 1854, p. 168; Belleville Advocate, March 22, 1854.
68 Congressional Globe, 33 congress, i session, appendix, 654.
69 They passed a set of strong resolutions to which Douglas replied in a
long letter of eight columns in the Washington Sentinel; Illinois State Register,
April 20, 1854; Alton Courier, May 6, June 8, 1854.
60 John Mason Peck to the editor of the Belleville Advocate, March 21, in
Belleville Advocate, April 12, 1854.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT 123
Among the most sturdy opponents of the repeal of the
Missouri compromise were the German voters of Illinois.
They had at once been alienated by the Clayton amendment
which denied to foreigners any political rights in the new ter-
ritories. The German press of the state promptly rejected
Douglas' pet measure. Before the end of January, George
Schneider, editor of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, aggressively
committed his organ to the repudiation of the Douglas program.
The Quincy Tribune placed its opposition on record in the issue
of February 22, followed by the Alton Forwdrts and the other
journals.
It has been claimed that the first protest mass meeting to
be held was an indignation meeting held by Chicago Germans,
January 29, under the leadership of George Schneider. How-
ever this may be, the Germans in Cook county promptly placed
themselves on record as unwilling to swallow the Nebraska
bill. When the legislature visited Chicago in February a com-
mittee of German citizens waited upon Lieutenant Governor
Koerner and placed in his charge a petition to the legislature
signed by several hundred against the repeal of the Missouri
compromise. Judd presented in the general assembly a similar
petition representing eight hundred German voters of Chicago.
On the evening of March 16 a mass meeting of German citi-
zens, in which Edward Schlaeger, George Schneider, Alderman
Francis Hoffman, and others participated, unanimously con-
demned Douglas as " an ambitious and dangerous demagogue "
and agreed to take the offensive against the slave power. A
later meeting of former German supporters burned Douglas
in effigy. 61
Thus did the issue of freedom versus slavery become clari-
fied in the minds of Illinoisians, and thus did they refuse to
follow the lead of their popular senator when he seemed ready
to give the advantage to the peculiar institution of the south.
The German stronghold around Belleville and Alton
showed similar defection from Douglas democracy, led by Lieu-
tenant Governor Koerner and others. The Germans of Taze-
61 Chicago Dally Democratic Press, February 20, March 17, 1854; Illinois
Journal, February 21, 1854; McLean County Historical Society, Transactions,
3:53; Illinois State Historical Society, Transactions, 1912, p. 156-157.
i2 4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
well county held a spirited meeting at Pekin in which they
selected delegates to represent them at a proposed German
anti-Nebraska state convention to be held at Bloomington on
the twelfth and thirteenth of September, simultaneously with
the proposed state "republican" convention. 62 The Illinois
Staats-Zeitung took a leading part in all these moves ; in its issue
of September 20 it made an appeal for a republican party, a
great American "liberty" party.
62 Pekin Mirror clipped in Chicago Daily Democratic Press, September 13,
1854.
VI. THE ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
THE Kansas-Nebraska act proved a most distracting ques-
tion for the democratic organization in Illinois. A new
issue had been raised, not by fanatical abolitionists or free
soilers but by one who had ever declaimed against agitation.
Was this then " a charlatanism as thin as it is contemptible?" *
So at least large portions of Douglas' constituency promptly
declared. The Rock River Democrat openly repudiated
Senator Douglas and "his pampered allies" and declared:
" We forbear an expression of our deep indignation, and shall
choke the utterance of our abhorrence of the men who have
insanely given us as a Democratic party to the contempt of
the world." 2 The Chicago Democrat lapsed into pessimism
concerning the future of the democracy: "Throughout the
North we behold but one prevailing sentiment, and that is in
opposition to a great measure which has just been consum-
mated, the responsibility of which the democratic party of the
nation will be compelled to bear." 3 When Wentworth, who
always prided himself on his party regularity, returned to
Chicago, however, and the sense of disappointment at the suc-
cess of the Kansas-Nebraska act subsided somewhat, the
announcement followed that the policy of the democrats was
to "beat the enemy handsomely carry the state gloriously,
and thus continue the ascendancy of Democratic principles in
her councils." All this might be done if the Nebraska issue
was ignored, if the slavery question was left where. the national
convention of 1852 left it. There were too many signs that
this was not to be. 4 Some Nebraska democrats were inclined
to urge a policy of generosity, but under the influence of Doug-
1 Galena Jeffersonian clipped in Belleville Advocate, March 8, 1854.
2 Rock River Democrat, May 30, 1854.
3 Chicago Weekly Democrat, May 27, 1854.
4 1 bid., June 24, 1854; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, May 24, 1854; Joliet
Signal, May 30, 1854.
125
126 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
las a disposition developed to require approval of the new
statute as proof of party orthodoxy. Through the pressure of
Douglas' control over federal appointments and under the
sting of the party lash, this spirit gained much headway in
Illinois.
The issue was fought out in the county conventions pre-
paratory to the fall elections. The anti-Nebraskaites pleaded
against the application of new tests, but hamstring politicians
by press-gang methods generally secured the desired indorse-
ment of the Kansas-Nebraska act and of its author. Morgan
county seems to have been the only central county where a con-
vention frankly laid aside the new issue and applied only the
traditional tests of democracy. 5 The Nebraska test was
applied everywhere in Egypt except in the Alton district; there
the convention refused to indorse the Nebraska bill or even
to pass a simple resolution of compliment to Douglas and was
disrupted before making a nomination. 6 In the Chicago dis-
trict and elsewhere in the northern tier of counties, the
Nebraska and anti-Nebraska forces fought out the issue in
primary meetings and county conventions with varying results.
When the Nebraskaites could not secure their way in open
convention they often seceded and held rival meetings of their
own to carry the contest up to the next step in the party organi-
zation. The Galena Jeffersonian disgustedly proposed a state
democratic convention to consider " formally excommunicating
the adherents of Douglas' Nebraska scheme, from the great
Democratic brotherhood." 7
It was not surprising that the younger democratic lead-
ers Lyman Trumbull, John M. Palmer, Colonel E. D.
Taylor, John A. McClernand, and Jehu Baker took issue
with Douglas on the Kansas-Nebraska act; but it came with a
shock when old conservatives like John Reynolds and Sidney
Breese spoke out with equal vigor. Breese " repelled with
scorn the attempt to foist this bastard plank into the Democratic
creed." Even Senator Shields began to waver and the rumor
5 Morgan Journal, July 6, 1854.
6 Alton Courier, September 9, 1854; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, Sep-
tember 30, 1854.
7 Galena Jeffersonian clipped in Ottawa Weekly Republican, September 16,
1854.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 127
circulated which he felt in honor bound to deny that in
voting for the bill he merely obeyed the instructions of the
legislature. 8
Whig leaders directed a bold attack on their enemy; since
assemblymen James W. Singleton, William H. Christy, and
James M. Randolph had voted for the Nebraska resolutions,
the Illinois Journal read the trio out of the party and, with
the Chicago Tribune, proclaimed the whig party as the anti-
Nebraska stronghold. Singleton unsilenced by the assaults of
his party associates, O. H. Browning, and Archibald Williams,
continued to defend the Kansas-Nebraska act in the neighbor-
hood of Quincy. Minor whig politicians, restive under the
yoke of the party moguls, protested as "national whigs"
against the attempt to convert the party to any brand of aboli-
tionism; a group of them formally renounced their connection
with the old party to go for "Douglas, Kansas, and the
Union." 9
The idea of common cause for all anti-Nebraska forces,
regardless of former party lines, made its appearance at an
early day. A large and enthusiastic mass meeting at Rockford
on March 18 passed a resolution that "The free States should
now blot out all former political distinctions by uniting them-
selves into one great Northern Party." 10 The Pekin Tazewell
Mirror suggested that a state convention be held of all parties
opposed to the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and the
Morgan Journal heartily indorsed the proposal; the Illinois
Journal, however, frowned upon the idea, complaining that
as the whigs were a unit on the Nebraska " outrage " there
was "no necessity of breaking up their organization for the
purpose of becoming a new political party, with a single object
in view." X1 It preferred that anti-Nebraska democrats should
adopt an independent organization. But anti-Nebraska demo-
cratic papers acceded neither to the idea of their own perma-
8 Alton Weekly Courier, October 12, 1854; Alton Courier, October 26, 1854;
Illinois Journal, October 17, 1854.
9 Illinois State Register, September 7, 14, 1854.
10 Rock River Democrat, March 28, 1854. A meeting of "respectable
farmers and mechanics " at Freeport went on record in favor of uniting as one
party in common cause against the extension of slavery. Illinois Journal, April
5, 1854.
11 Ibid., July 27, 1854; Morgan Journal, July 27, 1854.
128 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
nent organization nor to that of a fusion party; instead they
directed their energies toward healing the schism.
Many confirmed free soilers and abolitionists, however,
eagerly embraced the idea of fusion, or " cooperation," as
their organ, the Free West, preferred to call it. 12 Ichabod
Codding, a well-known antislavery evangelist, toured the state
during the summer months in the interest of the new dispensa-
tion. Influenced by similar movements in Wisconsin and
Michigan a mass meeting of antislavery independents at
Ottawa, August i, assumed the name " republican" as the title
by which the new party was to be known ; they passed a reso-
lution recommending that a state mass meeting of the oppo-
nents of slavery extension be held later at Bloomington. Later
" republican " conventions were held in La Salle, Will, Putnam,
and other counties, followed by a congressional convention
for the third district at Bloomington, September 12, which
was attended by full delegations from ten counties. 13 There
the name "republican" was formally adopted. A mass con-
vention in the first district at Rockford, August 30, agreed to
cooperate in defense of freedom "as republicans," while a
"people's" mass convention at Aurora, September 30, acting
for the second district assumed the name of republican; both
of these put republican candidates for congress into the field.
In the first and third districts whig and republican fusion was
complete while the only obstacle to such a combination at
Aurora was the difficulty of agreeing upon terms.
The republican state convention finally met at Springfield
on the fourth and fifth of October. Though the state fair
was at the same time in session, hope of political capital to be
made thereby was extinguished when it was found that in
spite of a public invitation by Lovejoy to the assembled
throng, only a small band of twenty-six tested antislavery men
appeared in the convention. Ichabod Codding, Owen Love-
joy, H. K. Jones of Morgan county, and Erastus Wright of
Sangamon were the leading spirits. To their disappointment
Abraham Lincoln carefully avoided the meetings though he
12 Free West, May 4, 1854.
13 Ottawa Free Trader, August 12, 1854; Ottawa Republican, August 12,
19, September 16, 1854.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 129
had made a thrilling anti-Nebraska speech at Springfield just
before the opening of the convention. This effort was highly
commended; " Ichabod raved and Lovejoy swelled, and all
endorsed the sentiments of that speech," sarcastically com-
mented the editor of the State Register. Aggressive anti-
slavery extension resolutions were adopted, after which John
L. McClun of Bloomington, a whig member of the legislature,
was named as the republican candidate for state treasurer. 14
McClun's name was posted by the Illinois Journal, October
9, and other papers, but was shortly withdrawn in favor of
James Miller, an anti-Nebraska leader who, as the nominee
of a whig convention, was of more orthodox stripe.
A state central committee was appointed by the conven-
tion, including Lincoln as the Sangamon county representative.
Lovejoy vouched for Lincoln's agreement with the principles
enunciated in the platform, but the wily whig leader, unwilling
as a candidate for the United States senate to incur the political
unpopularity that would follow association with abolitionists,
had absented himself from the city in order not to be identified
with the convention and later repudiated the use of his name. 15
It was this douche of cold water, probably, that prevented the
organization of the state committee, and a similar party loy-
alty deterred all except discredited " abolitionists " from par-
ticipating in the movement. It was that fact, rather than any
radicalism in the proposed course of action, that caused the
prompt death of this " republican" state organization.
Seldom in the history of Illinois had there been such con-
fusion in the congressional canvass as in 1854. The Chicago
district presented one of the worst tangles. Strongly demo-
cratic and antislavery in tone, it had been repeatedly repre-
sented in congress by the able but demagogical "Long John"
Wentworth, a noted champion of river and harbor improve-
ment, of land reform, and of freedom. Dominating the party
machine in the district, he was not without his rivals, who
frankly dubbed him a corrupt knave, " an unscrupulous demo-
gogue and political Ishamelite," and denounced the abuses of
14 Illinois State Register, October 12, 1854; McLean County Historical
Society, Transactions, 3:43-47.
15 Herndon and Weik, Abraham Lincoln, 1:40-41; Nicolay and Hay, Abra-
ham Lincoln, Complete Works, i : 209.
130 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the convention system, that prevailed under his "misrule."
Several independent anti-Nebraska candidates, therefore, were
announced to dispute his control long before the democratic
convention was held; but strangely enough the Free West
decided to support Wentworth on the strength of his sturdy
fight against the Nebraska act. 16
During this pre-convention canvass by democratic forces,
the local anti-Nebraska "people's" movement was gathering
headway. At a district convention at Aurora representative
leaders decided to repudiate all previous party attachments
and "hereafter cooperate as the Republican party;" James
H. Woodworth, a free soil democrat since 1848, former mayor
of Chicago and member of the general assembly, was nomi-
nated for congress. A whig convention simultaneously placed
a capable candidate, R. S. Blackwell, in nomination. These
developments fostered democratic humility. Wentworth's
anti-Nebraska rivals withdrew ; and he announced that, though
his election was as certain as his nomination, he would step
aside in favor of any true democrat who might be nominated.
Again, Aurora became the scene of bustling political maneu-
vers. "Long John" and his men found their control disputed
by a rival camp of Douglasites who held a convention of their
own. Wentworth's cohorts merely reaffirmed the Baltimore
platform of 1852 and repudiated all new tests of democracy
as heresy. They nominated E. L. Mayo of De Kalb county,
an old-time democrat, while the Nebraskaites put up a polit-
ical unknown, John B. Turner of Chicago, president of the
Galena and Chicago railroad. A four-cornered fight was there-
upon waged which terminated in the success of Woodworth,
the republican candidate. 17
In the first and third districts, Elihu B. Washburne and
Jesse O. Norton, the whig members of congress, were nomi-
nated as the candidates of the republican party; both had excel-
lent free soil records that had stood out above their national
whiggery. In the first district the democratic convention split
18 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, August 12, September 22, 1854; Free
West, September 7, 1854.
17 Ibid., September 21, 1854; Chicago Weekly Democrat, October 7, 1854;
Aurora Guardian, October 5, 1854; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, October 6,
1854; Illinois State Register, October 12, 1854.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 131
on the Nebraska issue with the result that rival democratic
candidates contested for Washburne's seat. 18
In the Alton district the democratic party found itself
embarrassed by the numerous candidates for the nomination.
The Nebraska faction seemed to control the organization but
the anti-Nebraskaites served notice that they would not cooper-
ate under any new test or issue. The result was a split in the
district convention before a nomination was effected. Joseph
Gillespie had been in the field as a whig candidate; but when
Lyman Trumbull, a prominent democrat, came out in bold defi-
ance of Douglas and the "new test" even the whigs rallied
with enthusiasm in favor of his election to congress. 19 Trum-
bull made a brilliant campaign against Philip B. Fouke, a
Nebraska democrat, and won a handy victory.
In the Springfield district, the democrats nominated Thomas
L. Harris, a Douglasite, to make the contest for Yates' seat.
Yates was, therefore, supported by the anti-Nebraska forces.
He was doubtless injured, however, by the participation of
Ichabod Codding in the canvass and the charge that he was the
candidate of the abolitionists. Harris showed great confidence
in his support of the principle of popular sovereignty; he per-
mitted himself to be placed on record as willing on this prin-
ciple to admit a state with a constitution recognizing and per-
mitting polygamy. 20 But fear of abolition at their doors was
so strong in the hearts of the conservatives that even " Polyg-
amy Harris " was able to win, though by a small vote. In the
remaining districts, the anti-Nebraska forces were under whig
leadership. James Knox was easily reflected in the Knox-
ville district. Archibald Williams made an unsuccessful con-
test for Richardson's seat in the Quincy district. William R.
Archer ran James C. Allen a neck and neck race in the Decatur-
Olney region, while no effective opposition was organized
against Samuel S. Marshall in the Cairo district.
These signs of an impending political revolution in Illinois
summoned Douglas from his triumph at Washington to avert
18 Free West, September 21, 1854.
19 Belleville Advocate, August 2, 1854; Alton Courier, August 30, Sep-
tember 9, 1854; Illinois Journal, September 30, 1854; Alton Telegraph clipped
in Alton Weekly Courier, October 26, 1854.
20 Illinois Journal, September 28, 1854.
i 3 2 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the crisis. The announcement that he would address his con-
stituents at Chicago, Saturday, September I, caused a public
demonstration of the unpopularity of his recent course. At
one o'clock on the appointed day, the flags in the harbor were
lowered to half-mast; later at six o'clock the bells of the city
were tolled for an hour. Then eight or ten thousand persons
gathered near North Market Hall; in spite of Mayor Milli-
ken's admonition to remain quiet, the crowd greeted Douglas
with a storm of hisses and groans, that overwhelmed the
plaudits of his supporters. Unable to proceed he announced
his intention to stay until he could be heard, whereupon the
mob broke into the chorus: "We won't go till morning, till
morning, till morning, till daylight doth appear." 21 Douglas
defiantly faced the mob, "The spirit of a dictator flashed out
from his eye, curled upon his lip, and mingled its cold irony
in every tone of his voice and every gesture of his body." 22
He and the mob defied each other until midnight when at
length the "little giant" was compelled to acknowledge his
defeat. Shaking his fist at the audience, his face distorted
with rage, he shouted: "It is now Sunday morning I'll go
to church, and you may go to Hell 1 " 23
This incident gave Douglas an opportunity to travel over
the state and say that he had been refused a hearing by the
abolitionists of Chicago. He met with very little more suc-
cess, however, throughout the northern counties. At Geneva
he was compelled to leave off speaking until his opponent, Icha-
bod Codding, responding to the calls of the audience, gra-
ciously urged that Douglas be heard through. 24 Undaunted,
he continued on his canvass, dashing from point to point in
the country of the enemy and in the more favorable terri-
tory in central Illinois. The climax came at Springfield during
the state fair, where his supporters hoped to score heavily by
arranging for a formal address. The anti-Nebraska forces
made their preparations to meet Douglas; Judge Trumbull,
Judge Breese, Colonel McClernand, Judge Palmer, Colonel
21 Free West, September 7, 1854.
22 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, September 4, 1854.
23 See Chicago Tribune account in Illinois State Register, September 7, 14,
1854.
24 Free West, September 28, 1854; Aurora Guardian, September 21, 1854.
5^ : iVVc-NK >VVSWiVr
22+ % oi vote in Jo Daviess
County was for Palmar
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 133
E. D. Taylor, and other democrats, were easily prevailed
upon to be at hand to make reply. With them enlisted Abra-
ham Lincoln, the whig anti-Nebraska champion. Douglas
made his main address on October 3 and was answered the
next day by Lincoln in behalf of the anti-Nebraska group.
Douglas replied in a "brief" hour and a half speech. On the
fifth, with McClernand and Palmer standing by ready to meas-
ure lances with Douglas, Breese, Trumbull, and Taylor fell
upon their erstwhile leader. 25 Douglas himself, with no oppor-
tunity to deliver a formal speech, had to content himself with
brief answers to the assaults of his opponents with such assist-
ance as could be given by his Sangamon county lieutenant, John
Calhoun. All this opposition seems to have made no impres-
sion upon the fighting senator; he was soon off to other battle-
grounds to get in his blows during the remaining weeks of the
canvass.
Loudly and aggressively did the democrats fling the charge
of "abolitionism" at their opponents, pointing to the active
participation in the campaign of such antislavery extremists as
Ichabod Codding and Owen Lovejoy, the brother of the mar-
tyr, Salmon P. Chase and Joshua R. Giddings, the well-known
Ohio leaders; even Cassius M. Clay, and Frederick Douglass,
the Negro abolitionist, invaded the state on short anti-
Nebraska speech making tours. " Hired gangs of abolition-
ists of the Horace Greeley and Garrison school," warned the
Cairo City Times, " are traversing the State, addressing the
people and telling them how to vote." 26
The returns in November showed a sweeping democratic
defeat. " Never before have the democracy of Illinois been
so completely vanquished," lamented the Joliet Signal of
November 14. A clear anti-Nebraska legislature was elected;
and though democrats elected John Moore state treasurer,
it was only by a policy of silence on the Nebraska question.
The congressional elections went against their regular candi-
dates by five to four. The shout of triumph in the anti-
Nebraska camp brought humility to the Douglas democracy,
25 Illinois Journal, October 10, 1854; Alton Weekly Courier, October 12, 1854.
26 See the Free West, June-November, 1854; Cairo City Times, October 18,
1854.
134 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
which at length showed a disposition to let the Nebraska issue
rest 27
The biggest stake in the elections of 1854 was Shield's seat
in the United States senate. The anti-Nebraska majority in the
legislature seemed to assure his defeat, though party allegiance
still called loudly to democrats of all stripes. Among Shield's
competitors were Governor Matteson, Lyman Trumbull, and
Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, still clinging to the obsolete whig
tradition, was a champion of antislavery whiggery; and the
main body of anti-Nebraska legislators supported him mainly
because they themselves were of whig sympathies. But could
the anti-Nebraska democrats support a candidate who hailed
from the camp of the traditional enemy? Yet success depended
upon the support of these democratic heretics. They were
inflexibly committed against Shields, instinctively preferred
Trumbull, but regarded Matteson a very moderate Nebraska
man, as second choice. Matteson, indeed, might well have
been elected had it not been that Lieutenant Governor Koerner,
a foreigner and an anti-Nebraskaite, would then have been
automatically promoted to the gubernatorial chair.
The house promptly elected anti-Nebraska officers. In the
senate, however, the Douglas men delayed organization with
obstructive tactics, while the anti-Nebraska democratic sen-
ators including Norman B. Judd, John M. Palmer, B. C.
Cook, and Uri Osgood, refused to participate in the democratic
caucus on organization. A joint resolution disapproving of the
repeal of the Missouri compromise and instructing the Illinois
senators to support its restoration was introduced but failed
to progress to final passage, although in one vote the house
committed itself to the resolution.
Hoping at least to prevent the choice of an opposition
candidate, if only by preventing the election of a senator,
Douglas tried to sow discord among the anti-Nebraska forces.
His organ, the Chicago Daily Times, January 10, patroniz-
ingly exhorted the whigs to bear proudly their ancient name
and principles, as embodied in Lincoln, rather than yield to the
solicitation of democratic anti-Nebraska malcontents. 28 Lin-
27 St. Clalr Tribune, November u, 1854.
28 Douglas to Charles A. Lanphier, December 18, 1854, Lanphier manuscripts.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 135
coin was opposed by some of these democrats, because of his
" shortcomings on the Republican basis." Besides his connec-
tion with a conservative u mummy of a party," his unwilling-
ness to oppose the fugitive slave law and to pledge himself
in opposition to the admission of any more slave states, was
regarded as evidence of too much conservatism for the old
time abolition forces. 29 In the early balloting, Lincoln received
the vote of every member of whig antecedents but still lacked
a few votes. The anti-Nebraska democratic bolters supported
Trumbull on the ground that as a majority of the legislature
were democrats in old party allegiance, a democrat ought to be
elected. Tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon them
to vote for Shields or Matteson. One of the participants later
charged that bribery as well as persuasion was attempted upon
him. Just when the bolters, Judd and his colleagues, were on
the point of abandoning Trumbull and joining their brethren
to elect either Shields or Matteson, Lincoln, convinced that it
was impossible to secure his own election, instructed his whig
supporters to unite at once on Trumbull as a candidate who
could be elected. 30 As a result the tenth ballot showed Lyman
Trumbull the choice of the state legislature for United States
senator. His election was hailed with universal satisfaction
by the entire anti-Nebraska press of the state. Douglas and
his followers, considering it preferable to a whig victory,
promptly acquiesced.
While the Kansas-Nebraska question was the chief issue of
1854 and 1855, other problems competed with it for attraction
and contributed to the general political chaos. Whig disinte-
gration and democratic schism provided a favorable atmos-
phere for the many "isms" that sought a hearing. The tem-
29 Free West, December 14, 1854; Aurora Guardian, January n, 1855.
80 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, January 13, 1855. George T. Allen
claimed in 1866 that he was offered by the democrats through L. F. Mebrille,
their agent, " all they could give " " to buy any vote for Gov. Matteson."
George T. Allen to Trumbull, June 14, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts. See also
Chicago Weekly Democrat, February 17, August n, 1855; Illinois Journal,
February 9, 1855. As it was, five anti-Nebraska members voted for Matteson
on the last ballot; two of these were William C. Kinney and Albert H. Trapp
of St. Clair county in TrumbulPs own district, who incidentally wanted to see
Koerner become governor as a result of Matteson's election. Belleville Advocate,
February 14, 1855; St. Clair Tribune, February 17, 1855; Koerner,
Memoirs, 1:624-625; Johns, Personal Recollections, 75-76; Lincoln to Henderson,
February 21, 1855, Illinois State Historical Society, Journal, 4:73.
136 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
perance agitation, split though it was into various factions,
suddenly acquired a magnetic appeal; after a surprising dis-
play of strength in connection with the proposed liquor law
of 1855, however, the movement collapsed with equal abrupt-
ness. An attempt was made also to force an alignment on
the issue of political nativism when a wave of native Ameri-
canism swept over the country to the hospitable prairies of
Illinois; but since it sought to ignore the ever present slavery
question, this became a centrifugal force which in time threw
apart the elements of the conglomerate mass.
The "know nothing" party was the name given to this
revival of native Americanism which, in its political aspect, was
a protest against the part that the foreign born citizen was
allowed to play, whether legally or fraudulently, in the prac-
tical workings of the American political system. It also
involved some objection to the Roman Catholic allegiance of
the foreign immigrant, particularly the Irish. Arising in the
form of a secret political organization which concealed even
its name and existence and holding up the high ideal of pro-
tecting American institutions from the " insidious wiles of for-
eigners," it made a strong appeal to various political groups
in the state. It furnished an opportunity for a dark lantern
exodus from old party bondage both to the whigs, who came to
feel quite like men without a party, and to democrats, who
were permanently alienated by the unfortunate leadership of
Senator Douglas; at the same time its novelty, its secrecy, and
its mystery as a ritualistic secret organization attracted hun-
dreds of converts. The new nativist movement claimed to
herald an era of political reform which should rid the country
of the corruption that had crept into high places, which should
substitute devotion to the union of the fathers for slavish
devotion to party. To the conservative who had grown weary
of the excessive sectional agitation, it promised an opportunity
to steer clear of the unfortunate slavery controversy.
During the early weeks of the canvass in 1854, the State
Register and other Douglas journals issued warnings : " Beware
of the Know Nothings," and " Beware of secret societies."
This was clearly an attempt to rally the foreign voters, par-
ticularly the Irish, in favor of the Nebraska party. Inasmuch
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 137
as the democratic party had always been the chief beneficiary
of the foreign vote the effect was to encourage nativism in
the ranks of the opposition which inherited some of the whig
traditions. 31 Soon evidences were discovered of local organi-
zations in Joliet, Ottawa, Grayville, Canton, Vermont, Farm-
ington, Alton, and other communities. A know nothing journal
entitled the American Era was started at Grayville, while the
Canton Register among others showed strong nativistic inclina-
tions; it challenged the "disgusting" flattery bestowed on for-
eigners to secure their votes and declared that only Americans,
including naturalized Protestant citizens, should rule America.
By August the order numbered over three hundred in Alton
and was preparing for the coming city election. One of its
meetings was held " in the culvert under Prisa street." When
the votes were counted on September 12 it was found that a
closely contested election had quietly taken place which resulted
in a complete know nothing victory. " The officers elected are
among the best men in our city," declared the Alton Courier* 2
It is difficult to state to what extent the November elections
were influenced by this new issue. Richard Yates was said to
have lost enough foreign votes to forfeit his seat in congress,
as a result of the false charge that he was a know nothing. In
the Belleville-Alton district hundreds of Germans and Catholic
Americans, fearful that they might vote for some know nothing
candidate, remained at home or " allowed themselves to be
persuaded to vote against Mr. Trumbull under the representa-
tion that every anti-Nebraska man must necessarily be a Maine
Law liquor man and a Know Nothing." 33 Similar reasons
were said to have accounted for the defeat of the anti-
Nebraskaites in the Quincy district. On the other hand, Nor-
ton and Knox in the third and fourth congressional districts
and Allen in the seventh succeeded with the indorsement of the
nativists. It was claimed that many members of the newly
elected legislature were know nothings as well as anti-Nebras-
31 Illinois Journal, August 2, 1854; Ottawa Weekly Republican, October 7,
1854; Joliet Signal, July 4, 1854.
32 Canton Weekly Register, August 3, September 14, 21, 1854; Alton Courier,
August 17, September 14, 1854; Illinois Journal, November 14, 1854; Free West,
December 14, 1854. Lincoln was similarly believed to be one of the nativists.
33 " An Adopted Citizen," St. Clair Tribune, November 25, 1854; see also
Alton Courier, November 8, 1854.
138 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
kaites; disgusted democratic editors therefore called it a
"heterogeneous mixture of niggerism, Native Americanism,
black republicanism and intrigue," a compound of " Fusion,
Know Nothingism, and Whiggery." The tabling of a resolu-
tion opposing any change in the naturalization laws and
the defeat of Senator Shields, because a son of Erin, was
offered as proof of the charge. "The Nebraska fight is
over and Know Nothingism has taken its place as the chief
issue of the future," declared Douglas anent the senatorial
election. 34
The next year was an off-year in Illinois politics; the know
nothings utilized it to perfect their organization for more
aggressive political activity. Recruits were enlisted in such
numbers that the heterogeneous character of the local councils
and the state organization became apparent. Nebraska and
anti-Nebraska men were now joining the order without any
strong conviction that nativism was the dominant issue of the
day. Soon there was wrangling within the brotherhood; a
general disposition to soften the proscriptive features of the
know nothing platform betrayed a desire on the part of both
the radical and conservative groups to build up strength for
themselves even at a sacrifice of some of the fundamental tenets
of the order. Each side charged the other in public with a
monopoly on bigotry. It soon became a fight between " Sam "
and "Jonathan." "Sam" represented the original and ortho-
dox brand of nativism; "Jonathan" was the champion of an
antislavery brand which welcomed all foreigners who would
disavow temporal allegiance to the pope. 35
These were insuperable obstacles to a strong and harmoni-
ous state organization. 36 Jonathanism, with an antislavery
extension plank, made rapid progress in Illinois, preparing
to resist the action of the southern know nothings. At a stormy
two day session of the Illinois Grand Council at Chicago in
May, Sam and Jonathan came together in a heated contest in
34 St. Clair Tribune, February 17, 1855; Joliet Signal, January 16, 1855;
Douglas to Lanphier, December 18, 1855, Lanphier manuscripts.
35 Alton Courier, May 8, 1855; Chicago Weekly Democrat, May 5, 1855.
36 Municipal activity presented the best field. In March, 1855, the know
nothings elected their entire municipal ticket in Chicago and Rockford, while
in April they lost the Quincy city election by 250 votes; Urbana Union, March
*5 I 8ss; Rockford Republican, March 14, 1855; Alton Courier, April 21, 1855.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 139
which the only gains were made by the latter. 37 A state con-
vention at Springfield, in July continued the fight: the anti-
Nebraska forces prevented the adoption of the Philadelphia
national platform with its approval of the repeal of the Mis-
souri compromise. The majority report of the committee on
resolutions, which included a clause calling for the restoration
of the Missouri compromise, was adopted by a vote of 74 to
35. The nativistic declarations were mild and ambiguous. It
contained, indeed, less nativism than it did antislavery doc-
trine; congress was declared to have full power under the
constitution to legislate on slavery in the territories. " The
platform," complained a conservative opponent, also " contains
enough of treason to the South and the Constitution to suit
the Abolitionists." Jonathan seemed to have dealt Sam a
death-blow and to have arranged for his burial. So true was
this that the rival "know something" order, which welcomed
the foreign votes on an anti-Nebraska platform, fell for want
of raison d'etre* 9
Pursuant to an order of this state convention, a know noth-
ing organ, the Daily Native Citizen, was established at Chicago
by W. W. Danenhower. In its first numbers it took strong
antislavery ground; after a few months, however, its tone
changed somewhat; and it adjusted itself to a more conserva-
tive nationalistic position. At the same time its nativism was
diluted to the point where it was able to commend the idea, as
promulgated by the German press of the state, that Gustave
Koerner be given the republican nomination for governor. 39
It was obvious from all these signs that political nativism
did not constitute a basis for party organization in Illinois.
The most important question of the day was the question of
slavery extension; the northern view, that slavery was a moral
and political evil and that congress had a duty to prevent its
extension into the territories was brought into vigorous asser-
37 The Chicago Democrat charged Douglas with being a lobby member of
the Grand Council, consulted by a large number of members of the proslavery
tendencies, whom he advised to hold to their allegiance to Sam. Chicago
Weekly Democrat, May 5, 1855.
38 Illinois Journal, July n, 1855; Ottawa Weekly Republican, July 14, 21,
1855; Cairo City Times, July 25, 1855; Chicago Weekly Democrat, October
27, 1855.
39 Daily Native Citizen clipped in St. Clair Tribune, December 22, 1855.
140 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
tion by the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska act. It was
evident that various fragments lay upon the political scrap-
heap which might be cemented together into an effective oppo-
sition to democratic domination. But blind adhesion to de-
ceased or expiring parties together with infatuation for novelty
and change had first to disappear, and this required time.
Whigs almost convinced themselves at intervals that old issues
were returning and that the day of resurrection was near at
hand. At such times they were unwilling to abandon their
"broad, tried, and natural platform" and their conservative
friends in the south in order to be swallowed up in a repub-
lican fusion of democrats, whigs, and abolitionists. The
Illinois Journal was convinced that the republican movement
had degenerated into a sectional party; accordingly, it clung
to its old whig connections but played the part of apologist
for the native American party. 40
John Wentworth, still proud of his democratic connec-
tions, took a long forward step when he permitted his journal
to declare : " The North is all split to pieces upon matters of
minor moment compared with the great question at issue.
Now we think the North should unite as well as the South.
If slavery can unite the South, certainly freedom should unite
the North." This was followed by an indorsement of the
proposition made by the National Era, the old free soil organ,
for united action by the north in 1856. The Ottawa Republican
was at the same time conducting a propaganda to the same
end. 41 The Galena Advertiser next recommended an anti-
Nebraska mass state convention at Chicago in October in con-
nection with the state fair. The idea of mixing politics and
agriculture was first frowned upon, especially in view of a
protest against such distractions by the executive committee
of the State Agricultural Society, though a little later, when
the proposition was renewed, it was widely indorsed. 42 Still
it was felt that the responsibility for calling the convention
40 Chicago Dally Democratic Press, December 22, 1854; Quincy Whig,
July 7, 1855; Illinois Journal, December 12, 1854, January 27, August 4, Octo-
ber 5, November 23, 24, December 6, 1855.
^Chicago Weekly Democrat, June 30, 1855; Ottawa Weekly Republican,
June 30, 1855.
42 Illinois State Journal, September i, 1855; Quincy Whig, September n,
October 9, 1855.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 141
ought to be taken by some organization in the central part
of the state and none of these had the courage to issue the
necessary call.
As a result, all that was done in the field of republican
party politics during that year was the perfection of local organi-
zations in the northern counties, where successful contests were
made in the local elections. Again Ichabod Codding took the
stump with the republican propaganda and Joshua R. Giddings
journeyed from Ohio for a speech-making tour in the hopes of
being able to participate in the christening of an Illinois
republican party.
Meanwhile Douglas was energetically at work trying to
bring unity and harmony into the councils of the democratic
party. At the end of summer he took the stump, appealing
to his erstwhile followers to rally for democracy and to beware
of know nothingism and Maine lawism lurking behind the veil
of anti-Nebraska. He tried to bully his opponents into acqui-
escence in the Kansas-Nebraska act by daring Trumbull to
make a joint agreement to risk their seats in the senate on
this issue in the coming state election. When his proposal
was ignored, however, Douglas concentrated on side issues
wherever he found himself in hostile territory. Douglas and
Trumbull met in joint debate at Salem, September 26; and the
two spoke on consecutive days at Chicago during the state fair.
In general, however, Douglas tended to center his attention
on Egypt where the party was solidly reorganized on Nebraska
ground with old time whigs in the place of the few anti-
Nebraska seceders. 43
Party organization in Illinois was still in a most chaotic
condition when the time arrived to consider the coming presi-
dential election. All democrats believed themselves the true
43 Chicago Weekly Democrat, October 6, 1855; Cairo City Times, October
24, 1855. A single outspoken Nebraskaite objector to Douglas leadership was
found in the Shawneetown Southern lllinoisan, which declared that his visit
had " not only evidenced the breach between himself and the people, but drawn
upon him the bitter hatred of many who a short time ago numbered among
his best friends." "What is Democracy?" it asked. Ottawa Weekly Repub-
lican, November 3, 1855. " In Illinois it means just now, to hallo for Douglas
get in office, gain wealth by the dishonest means afforded by your official
standing, and retire to some secluded spot and spend your remaining days in
princely style, considering yourself one of the ' luck dogs ' of the earth." Belle-
ville Advocate, December 19, 1855.
H2 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
protectors of the principles of their party, although it was
apparent that the Douglasites controlled the organization.
There were anti-Nebraska whigs who had learned to cooperate
with some of their former opponents in the fight on Douglas;
there were others who had entered the camp of the enemy
believing that only in this way could they do effective battle
for nationalism and conservatism ; there were " old-line " whigs,
who clung dreamily to the conservative traditions of the party;
but there was no longer a whig party in Illinois. Know noth-
ings found themselves driftwood on a tide that, having carried
them to the high water mark, was now rapidly receding; the
expediency of working toward an old or, if possible, some
safer new haven was obvious to them.
Many whigs, democrats, and know nothings would have
been glad to welcome the republican party, which had swept
all before it in the neighboring states of Michigan and Wis-
consin. 44 They were convinced that henceforward there could
be but one issue, that of slavery, and that there were to be
but two national parties the slavery restrictionists, or repub-
licans, and the slavery extensionists, or democrats. When
in February, 1856, the combined anti-Nebraska forces in con-
gress succeeded in electing Nathaniel P. Banks speaker of the
house of representatives, they hailed this first national " repub-
lican" victory and summoned the republicans in their neigh-
borhoods to celebrate it. 45 Anti-Nebraska democrats generally
rejoiced at Banks' election, but seldom looked upon it as a
"democratic victory" as did Wentworth in his Chicago Demo-
crat; many, however, as reluctant as he to part company with
old associations, did share his hope of being able to convert
the party to slavery restriction a hope which they would
never relinquish unless the national democratic convention
should record itself in favor of the principle embodied in the
Kansas-Nebraska law. This was the position of William H.
Bissell, Gustave Koerner, Lyman Trumbull, and hundreds of
other prominent anti-Nebraska democrats. 46 But such anti-
44 These democrats felt that they had made " a happy escape from a den
of thieves, drunkards, gamblers, and blackguards." George T. Allen to Trum-
bull, January 19, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts.
45 Rockford Republican, February 13, 1856.
46 D. S. Phillips to Trumbull, January 15, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts.
'43
Nebraskaites as John Reynolds, John A. McClernand, and
William H. Underwood were democrats first and last; they
would never falter in their allegiance.
The persistence of party loyalty was a blow to the hopes
of an effective state republican party. The party had its local
and county organizations in the northern part of the state but
lacked the aggressive support of just such democrats in central
and eastern Illinois. It threw the burden of organization upon
the whig elements with their reputation for lack of real organ-
izing ability and energy. For this reason it was natural that
when a caucus of anti-Nebraska men was held during the
session of the supreme court at Springfield, it was decided under
the leadership of Koerner and others that no separate anti-
Nebraska organization or nominations should be attempted. 47
Just at this time, the anti-Nebraska press of the state was
agreeing upon a proposition of prime significance for the future
of the antislavery extension group in Illinois. The Morgan
Journal, edited by Paul Selby, a participant in the Springfield
"republican" convention of October, 1854, suggested a meet-
ing of the free state editors to consider " arrangements for
the organization of the anti-Nebraska forces in the state for
the coming contest." This move was seconded by the Win-
chester Chronicle, edited by John Moses, and warmly sup-
ported by William J. Usrey of the Decatur Illinois State
Chronicle; Usrey suggested a meeting at Decatur on the twenty-
second of February. The final call was signed by twenty-five
of the leading anti-Nebraska journals; this did not include
the Rockford Republican, although its editor had indorsed
the proposition and appeared at Decatur in time for the open-
ing meeting. 48 A dozen arrived at the appointed time and a
few others, delayed by a severe snow storm, participated in
the later proceedings. The meeting was organized with Selby
as chairman and Usrey as secretary. Abraham Lincoln came
47 Thomas Quick to Trumbull, January 24, 1856, ibid,
48 Rockford Republican, January 30, 1856; list in Selby, "The Editorial
Convention, February 22, 1856," McLean County Historical Society, Transactions,
3:36; Selby, "The Editorial Convention of 1856," Illinois State Historical Society,
Journal, 5:343 if. The Chicago Democrat and the Chicago Daily Democratic
Press were the leading anti-Nebraska journals who ignored the call. The
Chicago Weekly Democrat, March 22, declared it had approved the object but
opposed the time.
144 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
up from Springfield as the only outsider present and actively
conferred with the committee on resolutions headed by Dr.
Charles H. Ray of the Chicago Tribune. Lincoln and Ray
framed resolutions which, though protesting against the repeal
of the Missouri compromise and against the further extension
of slavery, were designed to be truly national and conservative
on the slavery question. George Schneider of the Illinois
Staats-Zeitung insisted in behalf of his fellow countrymen upon
a moderate anti-know nothing plank. 49
The convention appointed a state central committee and
recommended a state delegate convention at Bloomington on
May 29. One of the two appointees to the central committee
for the state-at-large was Lieutenant Governor Gustave Koer-
ner. Koerner, reluctant to break with his old party associa-
tions, declined to serve on the committee; he indorsed the
principles adopted by the convention, however, and hinted that
if they should be repudiated by the approaching state and
national democratic conventions, he would feel free to act
with another organization. 50
Preparations followed rapidly for the state convention.
The democratic victories in the March municipal elections in
Chicago, Springfield, and other Illinois cities only spurred on
the anti-Nebraskaites ; by the end of April the tide was begin-
ning to turn following the defeat of the erstwhile whig, Colonel
Singleton, whom the democrats nominated for mayor of
Quincy. Local anti-Nebraska and antislavery extension clubs
were formed; county conventions followed, drawing together
all the opposition odds and ends. 51 In some instances they
frankly adopted the republican label, although this aroused
the protests of those who, wishing to stress the larger appeal,
called attention to the fact that the word " republican" did not
49 The satisfactory character of the platform was obvious from its approval
by the State Journal as " neither ' Know Nothing ' nor ' Republican ' " while the
Rockford Republican in its turn declared: "There is not a plank in the plat-
form but what is made of sound-live-oak Republican timber." Illinois State
Journal, February 25, 1856; Rockford Republican, March 19, 1856.
50 Koerner to the editor of the Belleville Advocate, March 6, 1856, clipped
in Quincy Whig, March 14, 1856; Koerner, Memoirs, 2:3-4. These were the
sentiments of other anti-Nebraska democrats like John M. Palmer and John
Wentworth. Chicago Weekly Democrat, March 22, 1856.
51 The Chicago Democrat and Chicago Daily Democratic Press gave the
movement encouragement.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 145
appear in the calls of the state central committee. Leaders
like William H. Herndon, George T. Brown of the Alton
Courier, William H. Bissell, Orville H. Browning, in confer-
ence with Senator Trumbull, sought to direct the movement
and keep it in the control of moderate men and conservative
influences. It was felt that even the leadership of the Decatur
convention would kill the movement. 52
At the appointed time, the anti-Nebraska delegates assem-
bled at Bloomington. About 270 delegates, outnumbering
the official apportionment of the central committee, responded
to roll call, although about thirty southern counties were unrep-
resented. " Old line Whigs, Jefferson and Jackson Democrats,
Republicans, American and foreign born citizens, laying aside
all past differences, united together there in one common
brotherhood to war against the allied forces of nullification,
disunion, slavery propagandism, ruffianism and gag law, which
make up the present administration party of the country." 53
The democratic state convention had already taken place on the
first day of the month and had adopted under Douglasite
influences an aggressive Nebraska platform as a test of party
orthodoxy; it nominated for governor Douglas' aid-de-camp in
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, his "man Friday,"
Colonel Richardson. 54 This was sufficiently decisive to absolve
John M. Palmer and the more restive anti-Nebraska demo-
crats from all party allegiance.
Judge Palmer accordingly presented himself at Bloom-
ington as a delegate from Macoupin county. He arrived
sufficiently early to participate with Lincoln, Washburne, and
others in the speech-making on the night preceding the con-
vention and made such a favorable impression that he was
called to the chair by way of honor to the new accessions
from the democracy. The convention adopted a platform of
principles which closely followed the Decatur platform and
made plans for a permanent organization. 55 William H. Bis-
52 W. H. Bissell to Trumbull, May 5, 1856, O. H. Browning to Trumbull,
May 19, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts.
63 Illinois State Journal, May 31, 1856.
54 Ibid., July 14, 1856; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, July 13, 1856.
e5 Illinois State Journal, May 30, 1856; McLean County Historical Society,
Transactions, 3 : 148 ff.
146 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
sell, the old democratic war horse of St. Clair county, was
nominated for governor by acclamation, to head the state
ticket. An electoral ticket with Lincoln and Friedrich Hecker
for electors-at-large was adopted. Illinois republicanism had
even a few months previously been strong enough to participate
in the preliminary national convention of the republican forces
at Pittsburg, February 22. Owen Lovejoy and J. C. Vaughan
attended as representatives of the more radical elements in the
state. That body had called a national nominating convention
at Philadelphia in June, and selections were now made of
delegates to represent Illinois. After the completion of busi-
ness the convention listened to addresses by O. H. Browning,
Owen Lovejoy, B. C. Cook, and Abraham Lincoln, who "made
the speech of the occasion." 5Q Huge ratification meetings at
Chicago and Springfield suggested the enthusiasm with which
the work of the convention was received.
Next came the national conventions. At Cincinnati on
June 2 the democrats selected James Buchanan on a squatter
sovereignty platform; although Douglas had allowed his name
to be placed in the field and had received the support of Illinois
and Indiana politicians, 57 it was clear that the Kansas-Nebraska
act had not advanced his availability. The republican national
convention with a heavy Illinois representation met at Phila-
delphia June 17 and nominated John C. Fremont and William
L. Dayton as the antislavery extension candidates. The Ameri-
cans or know nothings had already nominated Fillmore and
Donelson, who were later indorsed by the remnants of
whiggery.
The Philadelphia convention was in many ways a struggle
between former democratic and whig elements for a leading
place in the new republican party. The whigs put forward
Judge McLean of Ohio, a free soil whig; while the democrats
settled on Fremont, whom the Chicago Democrat had advo-
56 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, May 31, 1856. Herndon wrote later
that he forged Lincoln's name to the document that got him to go to Bloom-
ington. " Whiggery & Know Nothingism tried to hold him, but they couldn't,"
he wrote to Z. Eastman, February 6, 1866, Eastman manuscripts.
57 W. D. Latham to Lanphier, November 9, 1855, Lanphier manuscripts.
Douglas" Chicago organ, the Times, decided in December not to advocate the
claims of any candidate for the presidency. Cairo Weekly Times and Delta,
December 19, 1855.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 147
cated for the democratic nomination as a " Union and constitu-
tional candidate." But the news of the nomination of the
conqueror of California, with a whig for the second place on
the ticket, brought forth a general outburst of enthusiasm.
" Fremont, the gallant, the indomitable, the hero of our west-
ern wilds, his name is a household word throughout the Union,
and his active sympathy with Freedom has endeared him to
the heart of every free man," was the motto of welcome. 58
Westerners forgot any disappointment they may have antici-
pated in their enthusiasm over the republican declarations
for river and harbor improvements, the great desideratum
of the west; and for the Pacific railroad, the great national
highway.
The camp of the enemy immediately sent up the cry that
the "black republicans" were a sectional party; if democratic
" dough-faces " were trucklers to the slave power, then the
"kinky-heads" were converts to rank abolitionism! Develop-
ments conspired to destroy the force of that charge; early
Illinois republicanism had been repudiated because dominated
by old-line abolitionists; the latter now in turn rejected the
new brand because it would not measure up to their standard.
The ultra abolitionists assembled in state convention at Joliet
on July 31 and August I to nominate an electoral ticket to
support Gerrit Smith. 59 This in effect stripped the republican
party in Illinois of the stigma of abolition fanaticism.
Soon a spirited canvass was under way, with Illinois as one
of the chief battle-grounds of the campaign. Here Douglas,
reenforced by Horatio Seymour and John Van Buren of New
York, Governor Henry A. Wise of Virginia, and Lewis Cass
of Michigan broke lances in the ancient stronghold of " dough-
face" democracy with John P. Hale, the veteran abolitionist
leader, Nathaniel P. Banks and Anson Burlingame of Massa-
chusetts, Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, and Governor Charles
Robinson of Kansas. The main work for the republicans,
however, was done by local talent and it was of a high order.
Trumbull and Lincoln, Koerner and Bissell, Owen Lovejoy
58 Browning to Trumbull, May 14, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts; Chicago
Weekly Democrat, February 8, 1856; Rock River Democrat, June 24, 1856.
59 Ottawa Weekly Republican, July 26, 1856; Illinois State Journal, August
7, 1856-
148
and John Wentworth, Richard Yates and John M. Palmer led
valiant charges on the " Buchaneers."
The republicans made effective use of the story of " bleeding
Kansas." Illinois followed developments there with tense
interest. The state contributed thousands of emigrants to the
battle-ground of popular sovereignty, who either brought back
in person livid tales of the outrages committed by the border
ruffians, or kept their relatives and former neighbors informed
through written communications. The republican newspapers
eagerly garnered all fresh details while campaign orators
equipped themselves with the "tyrannical laws of the bogus
territorial legislature," and cudgelled their opponents, the
" nigger-drivers," into silence or apology. 60
The drive and energy of the republicans astounded their
opponents. Huge parades and processions with gay banners
and gorgeous floats preceded the meetings. At Peoria thirty-
one young women dressed in white with wreaths of flowers
about their brows, with one in mourning garb to represent
Kansas, were embarked on a boat, drawn by eight splendid
white horses; it was "The Constitution," "bound for the
White House." 61 This device was adopted all over the state;
often the young women were led by one more beautiful and
splendidly attired than the rest to represent " the queen of
hearts," the " adored Jessie," dashing wife of Colonel Fre-
mont. Free dinners and barbecues, widely advertised in staring
posters, drew together crowds of thousands; the roar of
artillery, the fluttering of banners, and the melody of
bands of wind and stringed instruments, aided in attaching
the sturdy yeomanry of the Illinois prairies to the republican
cause.
Northern Illinois with its Yankee prejudices became the
base of the republicans. Egypt was the stronghold of the
" unterrified " democracy, who shouted for " Buck and Breck; "
only along the Mississippi, in the counties of Madison, St.
Clair, Monroe, Randolph, Clinton, and Perry, where the
German vote was strong, did the work of the Bloomington and
60 A. H. Herndon to Trumbull, June 16, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts; Illi-
nois State Register, September 13, 20, 1855.
81 Rushville Times, September 26, 1856; Chicago Daily Democratic Press,
October n, 1856.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 149
Philadelphia conventions find supporters. 62 The central section
where old time whigs and Americans were numerous and an
uncertain political quantity, was disputed territory. The anti-
slavery whigs, led by Lincoln, Yates, Conkling, Browning, and
others, had joined the anti-Nebraska cause. But many old
Clay whigs of southern antecedents felt a strong impulse to
affiliate with the democratic party as having the strongest
claims to nationality. Don Morrison, E. B. Webb, Colonel
Singleton, Robert S. Blackwell, and C. H. Constable were
some of the leaders in this march into the open arms of the
democracy. 63
The know nothing situation provided a true political conun-
drum. Although the national convention had brought out the
American ticket in February, Illinois supporters hesitated
before ratifying the nominations. Under the leadership of
men like Joseph Gillespie of Madison county who had, how-
ever, been a signer of the Bloomington anti-Nebraska conven-
tion 64 a state convention was held in May which drew up a
state ticket and selected a group of Fillmore electors. The
American nominee for governor was Colonel Archer, the anti-
Nebraska whig candidate for congress in 1854 who had been
defeated by one vote. Archer declined the nomination, declar-
ing it folly for antislavery know nothings to throw away their
strength on a third ticket, when the Nebraska know nothings
were generally going for the Buchanan and Richardson ticket. 65
Buckner S. Morris, an old-line whig, a southerner by birth and
a slaveowner by marriage, was then brought out as the Fill-
more candidate for governor. In the end the American move-
ment courted by both parties and torn between the argument
62 Koerner, Memoirs, 2:22-23; Parmenias Bond to Trumbull, June 28, 1856,
Trumbull manuscripts.
63 Constable was made elector-at-large on the Buchanan ticket, though he
was known as a nativist and as an anti-Nebraska man with bitter feelings
toward Douglas and the " political incendiaries " whose " wicked ambition
drove them rough shod over everything sacred to patriotism in the accomplish-
ment of their selfish and factious designs." C. H. Constable to T. B. McClure,
January 6, 1856, Belleville Advocate, August 20, 1856. Blackwell had been an
anti-Nebraska whig candidate for congress in 1854. Rushville Times, June 27,
1856.
64 Ottawa Free Trader, May 24, 1856.
65 Rock River Democrat, June 3, 1856. Alfred M. Whitney, an elector from
West Urbana, declined to serve for the same reason. Chicago Weekly Democrat,
September 13, 1856.
150 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
that a vote for Fillmore and Morris was either a vote for
black republicanism or for the Buchaneers was* stripped to its
nucleus of old-line whigs and bitter-enders. 66
The republicans elected their candidates for congress from
the four northern districts, while the democrats returned the
other four. An interesting contest took place in the third dis-
trict. Reverend Owen Lovejoy, the abolitionist, was nomi-
nated by the republicans over Jesse O. Norton, the sitting
member, and over other conservative candidates. Lovejoy had
participated in fugitive slave rescues, and the circuit court
records showed several suits against him for harboring run-
away slaves; he was also said to be an uncompromising know
nothing. The delegates from the southern and eastern por-
tion of the district objected to Lovejoy's antecedents on the
slavery question and accordingly decided to bolt the nomination
and run a candidate of their own. A separate convention was
held at Bloomington and T. L. Dickey of Ottawa nominated;
he had the support of former whigs led by Churchill Coffing
and Isaac Funk. 67 Judge Dickey later decided to leave the
field whereupon the democrats fell upon Lovejoy with the
charges of the bolters and waged merciless war upon him.
Much to their surprise, however, Lovejoy carried the district
by six thousand.
These circumstances complicated the problem of the for-
eign vote. The Irish controlled by the adroit politicians of
their race, were generally firm in their democratic allegiance
and strongly hostile to nativism. The Germans, like the Scan-
dinavians, were, on the whole, anti-Nebraska but not clear as
to the party alignment that this required. 68 The word " demo-
crat" was still magic to their ears, while charges of the know
66 B. S. Morris to B. D. Eastman et al., August 12, 1856, Illinois State Reg-
ister, August 21, 1856. Canton Weekly Register, September 23, 1856. The lead-
ing light in Illinois nativistic movements, was W. W. Danenhower, editor of the
Native Citizen, which came to be printed at the office of the Chicago Times.
Danenhower encouraged by Douglas, started on an aggressive campaign in
which he deplored the possible success of Fremont, the " sectional candidate."
67 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, July 19, 1856; Danville Independent
clipped in Our Constitution, July 24, 1856; Joliet Signal, July 22, 1856.
68 On July 4, a Swedish paper, Den Svenska Republikanen I Norra Amerika,
was started by the Bishop Hill colony at Galva to support Fremont and Dayton.
It was the only Swedish journal in the west. Koerner to Trumbull, July 29,
1856, Trumbull manuscripts.
ORIGIN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 151
nothingism of many republican nominees made them suspicious
of a new attachment. Beset by arguments from both sides
they usually followed the leadership of spokesmen like Gustave
Koerner, Friedrich Hecker, Francis Hoffman, and George
Schneider, who supported Fremont and Bissell. Koerner usu-
ally declared himself still an old-line democrat, working for
the original aim of democracy, opposition to slavery extension.
The fall elections generally seemed to point to the election
of Buchanan, although uncertainty existed in the three-cornered
fight. Interest in the outcome became more intense as Novem-
ber fourth approached. When finally the votes were registered
and counted, it seemed that Fremont had rolled up a vote
in northern Illinois that must overwhelm the Egyptian
democracy. 69
As the returns came in, however, Buchanan showed an
unexpected strength in the southern districts, which smothered
the republican majorities of the northern counties. Winnebago
county was the banner republican county, Fremont having
polled 89 per cent of the total vote; dominated by Rockford,
where three republican newspapers flourished, it was a Yankee
stronghold in the west. St. Clair was the lone star republican
county in lower Egypt, where conservative democracy piled up
powerful majorities for Buchanan. The republicans consoled
themselves, however, that this stronghold of democracy was a
true "land of darkness" with a monopoly on the illiteracy of
the state. Republicanism failed primarily in being unable to
draw off a sufficient number of the whig and American voters
in the center of the state and in the military tract. It was felt,
however, that Fremont had done nobly; the Illinois Journal
declared that while it had not favored Fremont's nomination,
the election had " proved it right." 70
The election was in one sense, moreover, a humiliating
democratic defeat. Colonel Richardson and the state ticket
went down before Bissell and his associates. Bissell had been
a remarkably strong candidate. He was popular with every-
one, with his former democratic associates, with the whigs,
69 Rockford Republican, November 6, 1856; Rock River Democrat, November
18,1856.
tJHinois Stafe Journal, November 19, 1856,
152 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
who had helped to send him to congress in 1852, with the
foreigners, and with the nativists in spite of his Catholic faith.
Northern and southern Illinois united to support his candidacy.
The Southern Illinoisan upheld Bissell as a democrat of the
Je.ffersonian school along with the democratic national ticket;
Egypt was urged to enlist on his side, rather than that of the
"burly demagogue and sottish blackguard of the north," in
order to show that its neck no longer yielded to the yoke of
Douglas domination. 71 Bissell, therefore, led the state ticket
to victory with a plurality of nearly five thousand.
When the contest was finally decided and the governor-elect
turned his attention to the problems of his administration, he
found himself confronted by a democratic legislature opposed
to republican policies. It was necessary for him in his inaug-
ural address to begin the task of bringing this hostile majority
to accept at least some of his measures. The problem was
one not easily solved. Bissell had gone on record as opposed
to slavery extension, was elected on that principle, and was
bound to vindicate it; the charges that the republicans were
largely know nothing had to be met by a liberal policy toward
foreign born citizens, if the party was not to suffer from a loss
of their vote as in the late election. Finally, the injustice of the
existing division of electoral districts made it highly advisable
to remind the legislature of its constitutional obligations to pass
a law districting the state according to the population of the
census of 1855. After long and serious consultations over
portions of the message, these matters were agreed upon; the
final wording left to Bissell " whose mastery of style was undis-
puted." 72 The first republican state paper in Illinois was a
challenge to the very existence of the weakening democracy.
71 Southern Illinoisan clipped in Belleville Advocate, July 9, August 20,
1856; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, October 14, 1865.
72 Koerner, Memoirs, 2:37-38.
VII. THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES
fruitage of the democratic victory in 1856 was a
J_ demand promulgated through the supreme court in the
famous Dred Scott decision that the country at large accept
the extreme southern, doctrine the right of slavery to go
into the territories without restriction either from congress or
from any other source. Here was a blow aimed not only at
republican slavery restriction ground but also at negative action
under the squatter sovereignty doctrine. The consequences of
that decision were so serious that Dred Scott, the Negro slave,
became a freedman and passed from view on the stage of his-
tory long before Illinois politicians had evolved satisfactory
solutions to the problems that were raised.
The republican journalists sought to cover party embar-
rassment involved in this blow to their doctrine of congres-
sional restriction by proclaiming the decision as an infamous
attack upon the cause of freedom. " Where will the aggres-
sions of slavery cease ? " asked the Illinois State Journal, March
u, 1857. "Freedom and white men are no longer safe." "The
infamous decision of the Dred Scott case, has aroused the whole
North* to a realization of the danger which our free institutions
are subject to, at the hands of the slave power, and their adher-
ents in the Supreme Court," commented the Aurora Beacon,
March 6, 1857. " It now devolves upon the people," declared
the- Belleville Advocate, April 8, "to say whether they will
submit to this revolution, or take their government into their
own hands." Greater determination was conspicuous in all
this comment; little consolation was sought in the fact that the
blow had been struck in the form of what was clearly an extra-
judicial opinion, " which even Judge McLean and Judge Curtis
declined to recognize as authority." 1 Convinced that the
decision was rendered "through political chicanry [sic] &
1 Illinois State Journal, March 25, 1857.
53
154 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
fraud for corupt [sic] and political purposes," 2 they set to
work with greater zeal and energy to fight the battles 1 for
republicanism.
Democrats received the decision with a silence that betrayed
their bewilderment and uncertainty; naturally inclined to resent
the principles proclaimed, they hesitated to declare themselves
in opposition to the president whom they had just placed in
the executive office. Better to wait for a cue from some one
who might discover an escape from the dilemma ; they awaited
the return of Se.nator Douglas to secure the advice of the cham-
pion of popular sovereignty. Meanwhile they sought, to forget
their own troubles by enjoying the- discomfiture of their oppo-
nents whom they accused of being repealers if not rebels ; 8 they
pointed out that' the decision declared unconstitutional nearly
every point sought to be accomplished by the republican party.
Upon invitation Douglas on June 12 addressed the grand
jury at Springfield on the topics pf the day. He declared his
acceptance of the Dred Scott decision; it was now the law of
the land and should be obeyed. He insisted, however, that
the great principle of popular sovereignty and self-government
was sustained and firmly established by the authority of this
decision. The right to. enter the territories with slaves, he
explained, "necessarily remains a barren and worthless right,
unless sustained, protected, and enforced by appropriate police
regulations and local legislation, prescribing adequate* reme-
dies for its violation. These regulations and remedies must
necessarily depend entirely upon the will and wishes of the
people of the Territory, as they can only be prescribed by the
local legislatures."
Lincoln replied to Douglas in behalf of the republicans on
June 26, also at Springfield. Suggesting that the merits of the
case lay with the dissenting opinions of McLean and Curtis
rather than with thje decision of Chief Justice Taney, he de-
clared that republicans had no intention of resisting the decision.
They acknowledged that the decisions of the supreme court on
constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control not
only the particular cases decided but the general policy of the
2 T. P. Cowen to Trumbull, May 26, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts.
3 Ottawa Free Trader, March 14, April 18, 1858.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 155
country. More than this would be revolution. " But we think
the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that
made it, has often over-ruled its own decisions, and we shall do
what we can to have it over-rule this. We offer no resistance
to it." Lincoln, however, claimed the right for his party to
treat this decision, made by a divided court with strong evidence
of a partisan bias, as not having yet established a settled
doctrine for the country. 4
Douglas playing on the natural disgust in the minds of
nearly all white people at the idea of an indiscriminate amal-
gamation of the white and black races had championed white
supremacy. Lincoln asserted that the guarantees of the Dec-
laration of Independence were intended to include the Negro
and met Douglas' specious reasoning squarely: "I think the
authors of that notable instrument meant to include all men,
but they did not declare all men equal in all respects. They
did not mean to say that all were equal in color, size, intellect,
moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with
tolerable distinctness in what respects they did consider all men
created equal equal with 'certain inalienable rights, among
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This
they said, and this [they] meant."
Senator Trumbull paid his respects to the Dred Scott de-
cision in a speech which his supporters felt surpassed the efforts
of Lincoln. Gustave Koerner regarded Lincoln's speech as
"too much on the old conservative order;" Lincoln was "an
excellent man, but no match to such impudent Jesuits & Sophists
as Douglas." "Why D. nor the Democratic party ever sub-
mitted to the principle decided by the Supreme court in the
case of the national bank. He is a pretty fellow to talk about
the sanctity of such decisions further than as regards the case
decided." 5
The summer of 1857 was one of great uncertainty for both
political parties. It was, moreover, not a year for important
elections, and party lines were normally weak in local contests.
The situation was one which would try even the most adroit
politician wha might be under the practical necessity of adjust-
4 Illinois State Journal, July i, 1857.
5 Koerner to Trumbull, July 4, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts.
156 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ing his position to the will of the sovereign people. Lincoln
and the republicans stood pat in their hostility to the principle
of the Dred Scott decision; unless they did so the new party
had been organized in vain. Their attention was centered on
holding existing strength and on adding recruits from the dem-
ocratic and know nothing ranks. The support of know nothing
voters was encouraged by the nomination of moderate mem-
bers who had never been elected to office by that party. An
organized campaign sought to get democratic readers and sub-
scribers for republican papers. C. D. Hay was instrumental
in securing a thousand subscriptions in upper Egypt for the
Chicago Tribune and the St. Louis Democrat; John G. Nicolay
and others also added hundreds of subscriptions to antislavery
papers. 6
Douglas, however, was in a quandary; the previous elec-
tion had revealed a restlessness on the part of his democratic
constituency which the existing uncertainty could scarcely allay.
Could the voters swallow the Dred Scott diet without result-
ing nausea? Were they ready to follow him in any course
save opposition to the democratic administration at Washing-
ton? These were questions to which Douglas sought to- find
answers ; they meant a serious summer's task for the doughty
senator and promised to determine his success or failure in the
coming contest for his seat in congress. Quietly and unobtru-
sively he set about feeling the public pulse. The support of
central Illinois was especially important; he -sought to learn
its will. In September he appeared at the state fair at Spring-
field and jovially greeted all persons whom he met with a. shake
of the hand or a slap on the shoulder; he joined groups con-
versing on the topics of the day and soon became the
center of the discussion. 7 The evidences of a growing
antislavery sentiment in Illinois could not escape' so shrewd
an observer.
Interest in the situation in "bleeding Kansas" was unusu-
6 O. C. Dake to Trumbull, September 14, 1857, C. D. Hay to Trumbull,
October 4, November 7, 1857, John O. Johnson to Trumbull, October 9, 1857,
John G. Nicolay to Trumbull, December 20, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts.
7 See O. M. Hatch to Trumbull, September u, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts.
The effect was to arouse the ire of zealous republicans, who resented having
this " truckling politician turn the fair grounds into a political arena."
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 157
ally keen and popular sympathy was generally with the free
state party. Just after the November elections came the news
of certain developments under democratic auspices in Kansas
that threatened to be a source of embarrassment to Douglas
and his followers in Illinois. 8 Under authorization of the
territorial government, a constitution had just been drawn up
at Lecompton authorizing slavery and providing for its con-
tinuance in the future state ; the unique feature of the schedule
was the arrangement for a popular referendum not on the
entire document but merely on the slave state provision.
Douglas, however, either on principle or out of political
expediency, soon decided to oppose the Lecompton constitu-
tion as a fraud against the doctrine of popular sovereignty.
Brilliantly playing up the virtue of consistency, he was heralded
by his henchmen and by his party organ as the champion of
fair play, if not of freedom in Kansas. 9 At Washington he
defied the authority of President Buchanan as a party
leader by promptly announcing his anti-Lecompton position.
Such a new and unexpected development tried the patience
of the leaders in both political parties. What does he
mean is Douglas sincere? was the question on every-
one's lips.
Republican leaders were suspicious of his move. They
could but wonder whether it was not an act of self-preservation,
a ruse to guarantee the senator's reelection. The conversion
seemed too sudden to be sincere; to them it appeared merely
a stand to attract support from the republican party. 10 By
introducing an enabling bill into the new session of congress
Douglas could assume the leadership in the fight against the
proslavery forces on pure unadulterated popular sovereignty
ground. But the " little giant " with an air of injured innocence
undertook to inform republicans through various channels
that they had unjustly accused him of selfish motives in his
present position; was he not ready to combat the administra-
8 Washington Union, November 17, 1857.
9 Chicago Daily Times, November 10, 17, 18, 1857.
10 " Let Republicans not be deceived by the treacherous ' little Joker ! ' '
warned the Urbana Union, December 17, 1857. "Douglas has seven reasons
for disagreeing with the President five loaves and two fishes," explained the
Garden State, clipped in Urbana Union, January 14, 1858.
158 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
tion to the bitter end in order to carry out the principles of the
Nebraska bill? 11
Republicans who felt no responsibility for die integrity of
the organization swallowed this sop and began to shout for
Douglas; Saul has at length got among the prophets, they said.
Party leaders anxiously contemplated the difficulty of prevent-
ing former democrats from responding to Douglas' new appeal.
A conference was called and held at Springfield in January,
1858, but no decision was reached except to "keep cool for the
present." 12 Though it seemed best that the party should keep
clear of all alliances, it was obviously good tactics to use
Douglas as long as he could be of any service to them; they
accordingly encouraged him and the democratic schism, hoping
to profit by the " treason " without embracing the " traitor." 1S
It soon became evident that Douglas rather than the repub-
licans had correctly judged the sweeping effect of his anti-
Lecompton fight; not a split in the party but a mass transfer
in democratic allegiance from the administration to the Doug-
las camp seemed imminent. The democratic press almost with-
out exception came out for Douglas, 14 while the voters re-
sponded with enthusiasm to his bold leadership; only office-
holders, office seekers, and ultra conservatives came out in
support of the administration of President Buchanan. South-
ern Illinoisians wavered somewhat in their choice, but demo-
crats of the northern section decided immediately for Douglas.
11 Lest Douglas by raising the standard of rebellion should be able to
rally to his leadership an important following of republicans, Chicago and
Springfield editors of republican papers felt that their party ought to steal
Douglas' thunder by having their own representatives at Washington introduce
the enabling bill. C. H. Ray to Trumbull, November 24, 1857, C. S. Wilson to
Trumbull, November 26, 1857, E. L. Baker to Trumbull, December 18, 1857,
Trumbull manuscripts ; see also Tracy, Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln,
82, 83.
12 Aurora Beacon, April i, 1858; O. M. Hatch to Trumbull, January 14,
1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
13 They were ready, however, to welcome him as a full-blooded republican
if he could quietly content himself with a back seat. This most republicans
did not expect, although the Chicago Democrat, March 9, 1858, forecast Douglas'
conversion to republicanism to the extent of withdrawing from the senatorial
race in favor of Lincoln. It was proposed also that Douglas might be run as the
republican candidate for congress from the Chicago district. Ebenezer Peck to
Trumbull, April 15, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
14 In December 54 papers were anti-Lecompton ; the Joliet Signal, whose
editor was the local postmaster, sustained the Lecompton constitution, th$
Menard Index was willing to acquiesce in iti
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 159
A meeting of the Chicago democracy followed by a significant
demonstration at Springfield on January 13, 1858, indorsed
the anti-Lecompton position taken by Douglas in the senate. 15
Similar meetings and formal conventions were held in nearly
all the counties, all of which adopted resolutions disapproving
the policy of admitting Kansas under the Lecompton con-
stitution.
The republicans seeking merely to apply the principle
*' divide and conquer," had aided inadvertently in this transfer
of allegiance. They had found it necessary to admit that re-
gardless of Douglas' motives, his present position placed him
on the side of right; admiration of the man even prepared the
minds of many for support of his political aspirations. The
evidence of republican conversions forced the leaders to a
reconsideration of their recent policy. They now returned to
their original position and directed energy toward creating a
real split. "We want to make it wider and deeper hotter
and more impassable," wrote W. H. Herndon. "Political
hatred deep seated opposition is what is so much desired." 10
This policy required the discovery of a Buchanan or na-
tional democratic faction and its development into an effective
organization. A nucleus for it could be found in the appointees
of President Buchanan, all of whom had been active democratic
politicians. It was obvious that the rebel Douglas would no
longer be the dispenser of the administration patronage in the
state; rumors began to circulate, moreover, that the political
guillotine would shortly be set to work in earnest to lop off the
heads of anti-Lecompton postmasters. Postmaster Price of
Chicago was the first victim; others in fear and trembling
awaited their turn. Republican leaders and journals labored
industriously to bring democratic officeholders to a realization
of the danger and office seekers to a sense of the rewards
available for loyal administration men. 17
Since the regular democratic journals were engaged in
15 Illinois State Register, January 14, 1858; Ottawa Free Trader, January
2, 1858.
16 Herndon to Trumbull, February 19, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
17 Rock River Democrat, February 16, 1858; Rockford Republican, Febru-
ary 25, 1858; Chicago Democrat, March 15, 1858; Chicago Daily Democratic
Press, February 19, 1858.
i6o THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Douglas propaganda, the building up of an administration
democratic press was essential to aggressive organization work.
Federal officeholders were recruited as publishers and editors;
during the spring the Chicago National Union, later replaced
by the Chicago Herald, the Illinois State Democrat at Spring-
field, and several other Buchanan organs, entered the field.
Before long a real administration party arose to dispute
Douglas' triumph. 18
The leading republican journals, finding that a portion of
their own party press had been led to espouse the cause of
Douglas, next labored to show that there was no more reason
for supporting Douglas than for supporting the administra-
tion. The republican party has its distinct principles, they ar-
gued; to these principles Douglas is as much opposed as is
President Buchanan; the only point of policy held in common
by Douglas' friends and the republicans is opposition to the
attempted fraud in Kansas. Even on that point Douglas, in
contrast to republican adherence to principle, is influenced by
selfish motives; his aim is to gratify his pique against Buchanan
and to forward his own ambitions. 19
To the dismay and embarrassment of republican leaders
in Illinois the eastern spokesmen of the party seemed to have
been taken in by Douglas' strategy. At the very opening of
congress eastern republican members had entered into confer-
ence with Senator Douglas; he was given to understand that
they would back him not only in his fight with Buchanan but
even in his campaign for reelection. Next, Horace Greeley,
the editor of the New York Tribune, went to Washington to
consult with Douglas. Shortly afterwards the Tribune, filled
with eulogies of the " little giant," intimated that republican
support of his senatorial candidacy was merely the prelimi-
nary step to Douglas' gradual identification with the republican
party. Other eastern republican journals took up the idea,
including even the National Era, the old free soil organ at
18 Chicago Democrat, March 6, 1858; Chicago Daily Democratic Press,
February 9, xx, 13, 1858; E. L. Baker to Trumbull, May i, 1858, Trumbull
manuscripts.
19 Urbana Union, February 25, March 25, 1858; Chicago Democrat, April
15, 1858; Rockford Republican, April i, 1858; Rock River Democrat, January
5, 1858.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 161
Washington. In view of the influence wielded by these papers
in the state of Illinois, their position caused republican poli-
ticians grave concern. 20
Elihu B. Washburne, congressman from the Galena dis-
trict, was sent to Springfield as a messenger from Greeley to
propose that Lincoln be dropped in Douglas' favor. 21 Then
came from Washington a proposition which was confidentially
placed before leading republicans by Sheahan of the Chicago
Daily Times, that in order to defeat the Lecompton legisla-
tive candidates in the doubtful districts, Douglas and the re-
publicans should cooperate to elect the anti-Lecompton demo-
cratic congressmen, in return for which Douglas would retire
in favor of the republican candidate for senator. Although
this proposition was seriously considered by party leaders in
Chicago and Springfield, it was finally agreed to call a state
convention to reject the proposed bargain and to fight out those
matters squarely with Douglas. 22
The Douglas forces had been successful in setting the early
date of April 2 1 for the democratic state convention at Spring-
field; though both factions busied themselves with the selec-
tion of delegates of the right stripe, everywhere the Douglas
group succeeded in controlling the regular party organizations.
In some places the only Buchanan democrat was the local post-
master, though in other regions, especially in Egypt, the " simon
pure " Buchanan democrats did show some strength and activ-
ity. Challenging the regularity of the Douglas men, they
undertook to read them out of the party and prepared to get
up conventions of their own. An organization was established
in Chicago, where the Irish led by Owen McCarthy and Philip
Conley, inclined to stand by the administration; and meetings
were held at Aurora, Springfield, and at various other places. 23
20 Chicago Tribune clipped in Ottawa Weekly Republican, April 24, 1858.
Thurlow Weed and William H. Seward were apparently party to these nego-
tiations, while Henry Wilson and N. P. Banks of Massachusetts approved the
indorsement of Douglas. N. B. Judd to Trumbull, March 7, 1858, C. H. Ray
to Trumbull, March 9, 1858, John O. Johnson to Trumbull, May n, 1858,
Trumbull manuscripts; Tracy, Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 83-84.
21 McLean County Historical Society, Transactions, 3:123.
22 J. K. Dubois to Trumbull, March 22, April 8, 1858, A. Jonas to Trumbull,
April n, 1858, Herndon to Trumbull, April 12, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
23 Chicago Democrat, March 6, 1858; Chicago Daily Democratic Press,
March n, 29, 30, 1858.
162 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
The Douglasites appeared at Springfield in full strength.
An aggressive anti-Lecompton platform was adopted, unani-
mously approving the principle of the Cincinnati convention
of 1856 as applied by Senator Douglas; and his recent course
was given a hearty indorsement. The convention decided,
however, not to antagonize the Buchanan men by taking an
emphatic stand against the administration. Even a resolution
mildly censuring Buchanan for turning Douglas men out of
office for opinion's sake was voted down. Besides the all-
important nomination for senator, the convention named Wil-
liam B. Fondey as candidate for state treasurer and ex-Gov-
ernor Augustus C. French as candidate for superintendent of
public instruction. 24
The national democrats had failed in their original scheme
to send duplicate delegations to the convention to obstruct the
work of the Douglasites. A squad of forty or fifty delegates
was recruited, representing the formal organizations of five
counties and informal representatives of twenty-three others;
they were led by Isaac Cook, the postmaster of Chicago, who
appealed to some with threats of removal from office and to
others with promises of places. Since a preliminary caucus
showed that they were hopelessly outnumbered, they presented
no credentials to the convention, but assembled in a meeting
of their own. A separate party organization was effected;
after passing resolutions strongly indorsing the administra-
tion, they agreed to postpone the nomination of candidates
until the meeting of a state convention on the eighth of June.
This nominating convention of about two hundred delegates
from thirty or more counties discussed Sidney M. Breese as
a candidate for the senatorship, but took no formal action;
they did put up John Dougherty for treasurer and the " old
ranger," John Reynolds, for school superintendent. 25 Strangely
enough on the point of principle both of these candidates had
been anti-Nebraska men only four years before.
The indorsement of the traditional democratic faith by
the Douglas convention made the duty of the republicans of
24 Illinois State Register, April 22, 1858; Illinois State Journal, April 28,
1858.
25 Illinois State Register, June 10, 1858; Illinois State Journal, June 9, 16,
1858.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 163
Illinois exceedingly plain. On the night of the convention about
thirty prominent republicans held a caucus which expressed a
firm conviction that they were relieved of every obligation to
Douglas and ought to have nothing to do with him. In an
atmosphere of harmony and brotherly love the mutual sus-
picion of ex-whigs and of ex-democrats was allayed, while both
elements acknowledged the moral obligation to support Lin-
coln in return for his withdrawal in 1855 in favor of
Trumbull. 26
The call for a republican state convention which followed
the next day met an immediate and enthusiastic response.
County conventions, after denouncing the treatment applied to
Kansas often expressed a sense of gratitude to Douglas as
well as to the republican congressman for their opposition to
the Lecompton proposition; this was usually followed, how-
ever, by an announcement that Abraham Lincoln was the
party's choice for United States senator. Ninety-five county
meetings had given such an indorsement to Lincoln. 27 On June
1 6 there gathered at Springfield one of the largest delegate
conventions ever witnessed in the state: one thousand five
hundred delegates were said to be on the ground, all full of
" electric fire." They adopted a platform of principles breath-
ing a broad, liberal nationalism; it was based on the doctrine
that free labor is the only true support of republican institu-
tions. Exception was taken to the policies of the administration
and to the Dred Scott decision. 28 A state ticket with James
Miller for treasurer and Newton Bateman for superintendent
of public instruction was selected. A resolution indorsing
Abraham Lincoln as the first and only choice of the republicans
of Illinois for the United States senate was greeted with shouts
of applause and unanimously adopted.
Lincoln's nomination was so much a matter of course that
he was prepared for the invitation which followed to address
26 George T. Brown to Trumbull, April 25, 1858, E. L. Baker to. Trumbull,
May i, 1858, Herndon to Trumbull, April 24, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
27 Rockford Republican, June 17, 1858.
28 Herndon to Trumbull, June 24, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts; Tracy,
Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 87-88. Support was promised to
homestead legislation, to river and harbor improvement, and to a Pacific railroad
by a central route. Illinois State Journal, June 23, 1858; Alton Courier, June 18,
1858.
1 64 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the convention in an adjourned session in the evening. In a
carefully prepared speech delivered without manuscript or
notes, he laid before the assembled delegates a prophecy of
grave moral and political import a forecast of the logical
result toward which events were hurrying the nation. "'A
house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe that this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half
free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved I do not
expect the house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be
divided." 29
Was that undivided house to be all slave? The recent
action of the supreme court in the case of Dred Scott was but
one fragment of a mountain of evidence which revealed a de-
sign to make slavery national. " Put this and that together,"
he reasoned, " and we have another nice little niche, which we
may ere long see filled with another Supreme Court decision,
declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not
permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits
We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Mis-
souri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall
awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made
Illinois a slave state." In the face of this danger many had
turned expectantly to the leadership of Douglas; but could he
lead a real opposition to the advance of slavery, he who did not
care "whether slavery was voted down or voted up?" That
danger must be met by those who in their hearts did care for
the result.
The senatorial canvass offered the republican party of
Illinois an opportunity in the very crisis of its existence to
establish itself politically in the state. Its weakness in 1856 had
been concealed by the personal popularity of its gubernatorial
candidate. Now with the discords of the opposition and with
the feverish excitement that prevailed, it was hoped that Lin-
coln could snatch a real victory and terminate democratic
control. The contest also promised to serve as a test of what
the future had in store for the clever Springfield lawyer-poli-
tician whom political fortune had treated for twenty years with
28 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, 1:240 ff. ; Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
i ; Sturtevant, Autobiography, 291.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 165
all the fickleness of a courtesan. The senatorship was the prize
which had dropped from his grasp in 1855 and which now
promised to make or ruin his political career.
Douglas' followers accepted Lincoln's nomination as a chal-
lenge which made the issue of the campaign the question of
Lincoln's or Douglas' election. The Buchanan movement
they sought to ignore as of little importance though policy sug-
gested that the administration democrats be pacified, since party
differences over Kansas were held to be no longer important. 30
The "national" democratic leaders, however, spurned all ad-
vances. They reminded each other of the epithets applied
to them ; they had been branded as hired minions, corruption-
ists, as " Buchaneers," the " Buzzardi and Lazzaroni;" Doug-
las himself had nicknamed them " Danites," whereas " stink
fingers " was the coarse epithet applied to them by some Doug-
lasites. All these terms rankled in their breasts. "We will
not be insulted by them one minute and then embrace them the
next;" said their organs, "they want to come into the Demo-
cratic party to enjoy those spoils they have been so much dis-
gusted at lately The arrant political traitors who
sought to betray the Democracy must either go over to the
Republicans, organize their new party, or retire to private
life." 31 Let the bolters drop Douglas, and they would unite
on any reliable democrat. Inasmuch as the Douglasites exhib-
ited no willingness to accept this test, the " Buchaneers " brought
out their own candidate for the United States senate; Judge
Sidney Breese was carefully groomed by his followers in south-
ern Illinois who claimed that Egypt was entitled to the next
United States senator. Though Douglasites sought to induce
Breese to leave the field, rumors of his withdrawal were author-
itatively dispelled by him in a carefully prepared announce-
ment. 32 Breese's aspirations were encouraged by the national
30 The English bill had been passed allowing that territory a vote on the
Lecompton constitution in full, with the offer of 500,000 acres of land in the
event of favorable action. Douglas and the Illinois house delegation had
voted with the republicans against the English bill as failing to provide
open, free, and fair submission, but upon its passage the Douglasites acquiesced
in the measure. Most Illinois democrats had preceded them in hurrying this
issue.
31 Chicago National Union clipped in Illinois State Journal, May 19, 1858.
32 Belleville Star of Egypt clipped in ibid., July 21, 1858 ; Breese to Reverend
W. F. Boyakin, September 7, 1858, Belleville Advocate, September 15, 1858.
166 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
administration at Washington, which continued to use its con-
trol over the public patronage in Illinois to maintain the
Buchanan organization.
Republicans for a time concentrated their efforts on main-
taining the democratic split. The puny " national " organiza-
tion still required attention; it was considered good policy to
nurse the infant until it became strong enough to stand up and
fight not only the Douglasites but even the republicans, since
the latter could in any event easily knock it down. Separate
democratic tickets would mean easy republican victory; the
hopes of the Lincolnites fed upon the bitterness toward Doug-
las of prominent Buchanan men. Dr. Charles Leib of Chicago
and even Colonel Dougherty lent aid and comfort in this direc-
tion by their assurances to both Senator Trumbull and Lincoln
that the national democracy would without fail remain in the
field with separate candidates in every county and congressional
district. 33
At the same time certain radical " black republicans " found
indorsement of Douglas to be a valuable expedient to prevent
the Buchanan men from harmonizing with the Douglas wing.
M. W. Delahay, an Alton radical who bitterly hated Douglas,
went on the stump for the "little giant" with the understand-
ing of Lincoln and the republicans; he remained in the field
until the Buchanan convention nominated its state ticket; then,
according to arrangement, he came out for Lincoln. 34
In playing policy to both democratic wings the republicans
incurred the danger of overshooting the mark. Their interest
in the " Buchaneers " was so marked as to make it necessary
to deny charges of an alliance between the two groups, while
their Douglas-espousing tactics actually encouraged lukewarm
party men of democratic antecedents to break for Douglas.
Old-line whigs, whose political connections for the past four
years had been very uncertain, were already prone to choose
moderate antislavery ground over " negro-equality republican-
ism," and welcomed such an opening, especially in view of
recommendations in favor of Douglas coming from outside
33 Joseph Medill to Trumbull, April 22, 1858, Herndon to Trumbull, July 8,
1858, Charles Leib to Trumbull, July 20, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
34 M. W. Delahay to Trumbull, November 28, 1857, May 22, 1858, ibid.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 167
republicans. 35 These developments forced republican leaders
to change their tactics; they decided to concentrate their oppo-
sition on "the little dodger" as the real enemy to be met
squarely and in the open. This was exactly to Douglas' liking;
for the three-cornered fight practically ended with Douglas'
return to Illinois to open his active canvass.
On learning of Lincoln's nomination, Douglas acknowl-
edged the worth of his opponent by declaring: "I shall have
my hands full. He is the strong man of his party full of
wit, facts, dates, and the best stump-speaker, with his droll
ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is
shrewd; and if I beat him, my victory will be hardly won." 36
With this compliment, Douglas buckled on his armor for
mortal combat in the political arena. On July 9, just after
the adjournment of congress, he arrived in Chicago. Enthu-
siastic supporters had met him in Michigan City to conduct
him by special train to the splendid celebration of his home-
coming. Chicago was in gala attire; cannon boomed, ban-
ners waved, and fireworks flashed, until the crowd some
said forty or fifty thousand people was delivered over to
the eloquence of the fiery senator, speaking from the balcony
of the Tremont House. 37
Realizing that his rival, Lincoln, was an attentive listener
within the hotel, the senator threw all his energies into his
oratory. He pointed to the increased favor of his popular
sovereignty principle, complimented the support that repub-
lican members of congress had yielded to that doctrine in the
recent anti-Lecompton fight, and concluded with the assertion
that he was the only rightful champion of the principle of local
self-government as applied to slavery. Taking up Lincoln's
house-divided speech he sought to make his rival the spokes-
man of a sectional abolition republicanism. He challenged
Lincoln's plan to array section against section, to incite a war
of extermination; he himself was not anxious for uniformity
35 Tracy, Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 87; Chicago Democrat,
March ri, 1858; Illinois State Register, April 24, 1858; N. B. Judd to Trum-
bull, July 16, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
36 Forney, Anecdotes of Public Men, 2:179.
37 Opposition journals claimed that the money for the expenses $1,281
had been advanced to Douglas himself. Chicago Press and Tribune, July 10,
j8 5 8.
i68 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
in local institutions differences in soil, in products, and in
interests required different domestic regulations in each locality.
As to the rights of the Negro, in a government "made by the
white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered
by white men," anyone of inferior race should be allowed only
such rights, privileges, and immunities as each state should
judge consistent with the safety of society.
Lincoln replied from the same rostrum on the next evening,
after a series of demonstrations in imitation of the Douglas
celebration. He challenged Douglas' attempt to transfigure
himself with the mantle of popular sovereignty by showing that
any distinctive popular sovereignty doctrine had fallen before
the assaults of the supreme court and that no one had ever
disputed the right of the people to frame a constitution. Placed
upon the defensive by Douglas' assaults of the previous evening,
he undertook to explain his house-divided proposition as an
experiment in the realm of prophecy and not as a program for
practical political endeavor. " I did not even say that I desired
that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do
say so now, however." 38
After a week's rest Douglas started for the capital by way
of Bloomington. There on July 16 he again attacked Lincoln's
arguments to show that they were not worthy of the support
of moderate men. Whigs and Americans, even honorable
republicans, had found the true issue in the anti-Lecompton
fight, while republican politicians, in order to defeat him, had
formed an alliance with Lecompton men and betrayed the cause.
Lincoln was present in the audience and when Douglas had
concluded loud calls were made for a reply from him. Lincoln
was induced to come upon the stand, from which he explained,
after three rousing cheers, that as the meeting had been called
by the friends of Douglas it would be improper for him to
address it. He found his opportunity on the next day at
Springfield when he replied to Douglas in what proved to be
the most "taking" speech of the first part of his campaign. 39
In all these preliminaries Lincoln was campaigning at a
38 Writings of Lincoln, 3:49; Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 18; Tracy, Uncol-
lected Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 86-87.
39 Ibid., 92-93 ; Writings of Lincoln, 3 : 67 S.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 169
distinct disadvantage. The democratic machinery gave Doug-
las' movements the atmosphere on a triumphal march: a train
dedicated to the "champion of popular sovereignty" moved
into a station heralding his arrival with the booming of a
twelve-pounder mounted on a platform car, then came the
flourish of trumpets, the roar of salutes, the music of bands,
the parade formed with waving banners, until the festive
crowd, forgetting the heat and dust of prairie midsummer,
moved to the speech-making. This was good democratic enthu-
siasm. The republicans, with their more limited campaign
funds and with too much of the lethargic whig spirit in their
ranks, at best could only try their hand at imitation. Lincoln,
trailing into town on the heels of Douglas, was lost in the
immense audience that assembled to hear the "little giant"
an audience composed not only of loyal democrats but also of
republicans, whigs, and know nothings drawn by the fame of
the anti-Lecompton hero. Douglas usually succeeded in placing
his rival on the defensive; seldom did he leave an opening
which made possible an effective comeback. Lincoln's only
chance came when, after the large holiday crowd had dispersed,
the faithful of the faith rallied a handful of the populace to
attend the lanky Springfield lawyer.
The republicans, perceiving their disadvantage, were
shrewd enough to propose a joint canvass in true western style.
The challenge was promptly sent; 40 Douglas, who for some
time feared that the administration candidate might ask admit-
tance in order to wage common cause against his seat in the
senate, reluctantly indicated a willingness to meet his opponent
in each of the remaining congressional districts. He reserved
the right to dictate the details: they were to meet at the
towns of Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg,
Quincy, and Alton; the opening speeches were to last one hour,
the replies, one and a half, with a half hour rebuttal by the
first speaker; Douglas was to have four openings and closes
to Lincoln's three.
Meantime Douglas continued to meet his scheduled ap-
pointments and Lincoln followed in his wake. Recognizing
that it was in the doubtful central counties that the battle had
* Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 59; Illinois State Journal, August 4, 1858.
170 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
to be won or lost, the speech-making tours carried them to
almost every town in that region. Douglas, with Lincoln
dogging him persistently, addressed his constituents in 57
counties, making 59 set speeches of from two to three hours
in length, 17 responses of from 25 to 45 minutes to serenaders,
and 37 replies of about equal length to addresses of welcome.
Of these speeches all but two were made in the open air, and
seven were made or continued during heavy rains. In this
tour Douglas crossed, from end to end, every railroad line in
the state, excepting three, besides making long journeys by
means of horse conveyances and steamboats. His road travels
amounted to more than 5,227 miles; by boat he made almost
the entire western side of the state and all that portion of
the Illinois river which was navigable by steamboats. 41
The first joint debate took place at Ottawa on August 21.
As was to be expected, the much heralded event attracted a
large holiday crowd, the admirers of both contestants and
the curious who were out for the excitement of the occasion.
There was twice the noise and enthusiasm of previous meet-
ings and after stirring preliminaries the debate began. This
first encounter merely prepared the way for the contests that
were to follow.
One feature of the debate at Ottawa was significant;
Douglas in catechizing Lincoln respecting certain resolutions
which he felt showed the dangerously radical character of the
republican party, furnished a precedent that gave Lincoln his
opportunity. At the second debate at Freeport he in turn put
a set of four questions to Douglas; in the second he asked:
" Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States,
exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a
State Constitution?" 42 In this question, which demanded
an affirmation or negative answer, Lincoln flashed before
Douglas a two-edged sword; let Douglas seize it from either
side to the destruction of his political ambidexterity! For him
to deny the right would but confirm Lincoln's contention that
popular sovereignty was as thin as broth made by boiling the
41 New York Times clipped in Illinois State Register, November 23, 1858.
* 2 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 90.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES
shadow of a dove that had starved to death; while to affirm the
right would alienate proslavery democrats in the south and in
Illinois, who clung to the doctrine of the Dred Scott decision.
From previous statements made by Douglas, there could
be little doubt that, with certain reservations to evade the lit-
eral prohibition of the Dred Scott decision, his answer would
be in the affirmative; he had already confronted and evaded
the issue in his Springfield speech of June 12, 1857, and in his
Bloomington speech of July 16, 1858, in both of which he
had carefully elaborated the doctrine of local police regulations
and of unfriendly legislation. Furthermore, since his imme-
diate game was reelection to the senate, he had to retain the
support of Illinois democrats who had been won by his demand
for a virile popular sovereignty. Obvious as should have been
Douglas' attitude, Lincoln wanted the satisfaction of compel-
ling him to promulgate it in as conspicuous a fashion as pos-
sible ; he wanted once and for all to cut him off from the asso-
ciation and support of the proslavery democrats.
In his eagerness to lay the trap Lincoln seems to have over-
looked the fact that at Freeport the audience was one of strong
antislavery convictions; the more conservative voters were
likely to be attracted by Douglas' explanation as to how slavery
might be excluded. Since probably none of the other appointed
places for joint debate would have been less favorable, it
would, perhaps, have been the part of wisdom to select an
audience more representative of the prejudices of old-line whig
and national democrats, likely to be alienated by rather than
attracted to Douglas' answer. But the Freeport crowd
15,000 persons, report said did furnish an opportunity to
make Douglas expose his views to the light of pitiless pub-
licity in a way that would make further evasion impossible. 43
Douglas, without fear or hesitation, made a reply in terms
of his doctrine of "unfriendly legislation" which became
known immediately as the Freeport doctrine: "I answer em-
phatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred
times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the
people of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery
43 Chicago Press and Tribune clipped in Illinois State Journal, September
8, 1858.
172 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
from their limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution.
. The people have the lawful means to introduce it
or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery can-
not exist a day or hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local
police 'regulations. These police regulations can only be
established by the local legislature, and if the people are
opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body
who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the intro-
duction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are
for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no
matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that
abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave
Territory or a free Territory is perfect and complete under
the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer
satisfactory on that point." 44
No opportunity remained in that debate for Lincoln to
present his refutation of this doctrine. His silence was inter-
preted even by his friends as acknowledgment of his defeat
before the logic of his rival. 45 At later meetings, however, he
undertook to expose the fallacy of Douglas' reply: slavery did
have the vigor to exist, had existed in the past without such
local protective legislation as Douglas held to be necessary;
was now, moreover, resistance to constitutional rights by un-
friendly legislation a monstrous, anarchistic doctrine as for
himself he was for revising the decision; he could not believe
there existed a constitutional right to hold slaves in a territory
of the United States.
Over the map of Illinois, the struggle was waged. From
the critical battle ground in the central counties they worked
by slow stages down into Egypt as far as Jonesboro in Union
county, where they faced the smallest audience of the joint
debates. Then back they marched to Charleston in eastern
Illinois; soon they were in the New England atmosphere of
Knox county, which assembled in force at Galesburg. For
pure oratory and logical synthesis the independent speeches
often surpassed the joint debates : no debate was in itself a
44 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 95.
45 Contrary to popular opinion neither Lincoln nor his friends and sup-
porters at this time dreamed that the future had in store for him a presidential
career.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 173
unit, there were charges and countercharges, sturdy defense
was followed by bitter attack, the opening of one debate was
the rebuttal of the concluding speech of the preceding. With
the closing words at the Alton meeting, October 15, some seri-
ous stock-taking could be attempted, but scarcely before that
time. Then it seemed that there was neither victor nor van-
quished; the two giants appeared only the stronger for the
combat that had closed.
Lincoln had a valuable ally in the person of Senator Trum-
bull, whose analysis of Douglas' motives in opposing the
Lecompton constitution was one of the most important features
of the campaign. In speeches at Chicago, at Alton, at Jack-
sonville, and at other points in Illinois he charged Douglas
with having changed from ground which would have required
him to support the Lecompton document to a position of
opposition out of purely selfish political considerations. In
June, 1856, Douglas, as chairman of the senate committee on
territories, had, after consultation with Senator Toombs, struck
out from Toombs' bill for the future admission of Kansas a
clause providing for the submission of the constitution to the
people for their ratification or rejection, and had substituted
certain other clauses to prevent a popular vote. 46 Corrobo-
rative evidence that such was formerly the devotion of Stephen
A. Douglas to popular sovereignty was found in his speech at
Springfield in June, 1857, and in the declaration of Douglas'
personal organ, the Chicago Times, that there would be about
as much propriety in submitting the Lecompton constitution
to a vote of the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands as to the " free-
state men" of Kansas. Eventually these facts were acknowl-
edged by democratic organs but they were never satisfactorily
explained by Douglas. 47
The republican journals took up Trumbull's charges and
pressed his point. Evidence was presented that suggested an
original sympathy on Douglas' part with the Lecompton
method of ratification. It was generally understood at Spring-
field and at other points that John Calhoun, the chairman of the
48 Congressional Globe, 35 congress, i session, 127, appendix, 799.
* 7 Chicago Times clipped in Illinois State Journal, July 29, 1857; Chicago
Daily Times, August 13, 1858.
174 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Lecompton convention, had written to Douglas in the month
of September, 1857, asking the advice of his former chief
as to the course to be pursued in the submission of the con-
stitution. Representative Smith of Virginia made this charge
on the floor of congress and declared that there was no evidence
that Douglas had discouraged the Lecompton scheme. 48
Why then had Douglas shifted to his aggressive anti-
Lecompton ground? Republicans were prone to believe that
he had planned the Kansas "fraud" so as to give himself an
opportunity to win applause by opposing the abortion. They
could make out a plausible case to show that the Buchanan
administration had been seeking to destroy the "little giant,"
that his friends had been neglected in appointments, and the
claims of Illinois overlooked; therefore, not intending to be
crushed by the administration, Douglas was seeking a basis
for new political popularity, that he might maintain his position
and groom himself for the presidency. 49 Democratic critics,
speaking with an air of authority of inside information, had
added their testimony to confirm this explanation. Represen-
tative Smith of Virginia and Representative Burnett of Ken-
tucky had told of a conference of the Illinois democratic
delegation at the opening of the session to mark out a course
to pursue in order to secure the reelection of Douglas to the
senate; in the conference it was determined that opposition to
the Lecompton constitution was the only means by which
Douglas could sustain himself at home. 50 Here, then, an-
nounced Trumbull, was the record of the man who stood as
the champion of the fundamental principles of free govern-
ment, of bona fide popular sovereignty; these were the motives
48 Illinois State Journal, May 19, 1858. Two years later came unquestioned
testimony from members of the convention that the form of submission deter-
mined upon was believed by them to have been suggested by Douglas and
was known as the "Douglas plan; " they testified that Calhoun had repeatedly
referred to a letter in his possession written by Douglas, which authorized a
statement of his approval and of his willingness to advocate its passage through
congress. Only one member, however, testified to having seen the letter ; he was
the proposed candidate for lieutenant governor under the new constitution.
New Orleans Delta, October 16, 1860, clipped in Canton Weekly Register,
October 26, 1860; Aurora Beacon, October 18, 1860.
49 M. W. Delahay to Trumbull, November 28, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts;
Chicago Journal clipped in Illinois State Journal, October 14, 1857.
50 Congressional Globe, 35 congress, i session, 1392; Illinois State Journal,
April 7, September i, 1858.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 175
of the hero who was braving unpopularity to declare the
Lecompton mode of submission a mockery and an insult, who
had recorded his preferences for private life in order to pre-
serve his own self-respect and manhood to abject and servile
submission to executive will.
While the romance of the campaign centered about the
figures of Lincoln and Douglas, much of the real work had
to be done by the journalists on both sides. Very inadequate
reports of the debates and speeches were printed, but the more
effective points made on the platform were sorted out and
driven home to the rank and file through the medium of the
editorial page. First, an analysis was made of the field of
activity. Shrewd politicians on both sides recognized that the
independent vote, of great strength in the central counties,
where a slight shift would throw the majority to one side or
the other, was certain to determine the outcome of the elec-
tion. A circle of counties reaching not more than eighty miles
from the capital including especially Sangamon, Morgan,
Mason, Logan, and Madison constituted the real battle-
ground; here lived many old-line whigs timid, shrinking, but
able men, from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and from other
southern states.
Democratic editors expressed their confidence that old-line
whigs were generally union men and opposed to sectional strife
and the doctrine of Negro equality ; 51 they could have but little
sympathy with " nigger-stealers," " abolitionists," and " incen-
diaries." Whigs were assured that the republican machinery
was under abolition control. Did not the nomination of Owen
Lovejoy, the abolitionist, for congress over Judge Norton,
Churchill Coffing, and T. L. Dickey prove it? Did not the
revolt headed by Coffing and Dickey against the now abolition-
ized republican party prove it? Nine-tenths of the old-line
whigs were for Douglas and democracy: there were such men
as Cyrus Edwards of Madison who had repeatedly been the
whig candidate for governor and United States senator; Edwin
51 They tried to leave no doubt that the latter was a cardinal doctrine of the
republican party. " Keep it before the people of Illinois," they shouted, " that
the Abolition-Republican party headed by Abraham Lincoln, are in favor of
negro equality, and claim that the Declaration of Independence included the
negroes as well as the whites." Illinois State Register, October 13, 1858.
i 7 6 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
B. Webb, the last whig candidate for governor; Buckner S.
Morris, the last American candidate for governor; John T.
Stuart, once a whig representative in congress; and James W.
Singleton, the confidential friend of Clay. 52 In Douglas they
would find the true successor of Henry Clay; Lincoln was of
the same stripe as William Lloyd Garrison, and believed in
rooting out slavery from the union by fire and sword.
For their part, republicans pointed out that all Lincoln's
past political connections had been with whigs and that he
had been an ardent friend and supporter of Henry Clay; in
1844 he had stumped the state for Clay and traveled some
four hundred miles on a speech-making tour in Indiana while
Douglas was vociferating all over Illinois that Henry Clay
had sold his country to Great Britain, that he was a drunkard,
a liar, a gambler, and a grossly and notoriously licentious
person. Lincoln had clung to that connection even after the
anti-Nebraska revolt, down to the Bloomington convention
itself. Identified all his life long with the old whig party, he
now stood on true Henry Clay ground. He was not an imprac-
ticable abolitionist as misrepresented by Douglas; he conceded
the right of each state to regulate slavery itself and had never
accepted the Negro equality doctrine. Old whig leaders recog-
nized the logic of an affiliation with Lincoln and the republican
party Joseph Gillespie, of Madison, had announced that
the position of the republican party harmonized with that of
old line whigs better than that of Douglas and the democracy;
and W. W. Danenhower had written a strong letter urging
Americans and whigs to vote against Douglas. 53
Special appeals were made also to the remnants of the
American party, for they together with the whigs had in 1856
cast a vote of over 35,000 for Fillmore; the support of this
body of voters was absolutely necessary to develop a winning
side. Douglas interlarded his speeches with praise of that
52 Our Constitution, October 23, 1858; Joliet Signal, October 20, 1850;
Ottawa Free Trader, August 21, 1858. Senator J. J. Crittenden of Kentucky,
the friend and associate of Clay, having cooperated with Douglas in the anti-
Lecompton fight, was named as a supporter of Douglas' candidacy. T. Lyle
Dickey to Crittenden, July 19, 1858, Herndon to Crittenden, November i, 1858,
Crittenden manuscripts.
53 Joseph Gillespie to Sidney Todd, August 20, 1858; Belleville Advocate,
September 22, 1858; Rockford Register, October 30, 1858.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 177
" noble band of Americans in the late Congress that opposed
Lecompton; " republicans replied by reminding Americans that
Douglas had been an early and persistent foe of know nothing-
ism. The tendency of these conservative voters was to hold
aloof from republican radicalism, and the democrats pressed
their advantage by placing former know nothings on their
legislative tickets. The republicans in alarm also threw out
political sops to attract American support, while they pointed
to the Roman Catholic allies of Douglas as evidence of the old
union between popery and the slavery propaganda.
Meantime the foreign born voters were prepared for their
part in the campaign. Most protestant Germans had by this
time become thoroughly attached to the republican cause. They
were still subject to appeals from the party of their former
allegiance, but the eloquence of leaders like Koerner, Hecker,
and Hoffman kept them from wavering. Carl Shurz, more-
over, came to Illinois to take the stump and aroused consid-
erable enthusiasm. Like most of their countrymen the French
voters of Chicago, numbering about 400, were largely repub-
licans; in Kankakee where they held the balance of power,
their organ, the Journal de L'lllinois, insured for Lincoln the
votes of the French population. The Scandinavians of Chicago
were generally Lincoln supporters. Against all these, the
democrats balanced the Irish vote which was a power in
Chicago and in other centers.
The closeness of the fight in the central counties furnished
a serious temptation to party politicians. In the closing months
of the campaign, both republican and administration demo-
cratic journals detailed charges that the Douglas organization
had made preparations to colonize doubtful counties with float-
ing voters. Evidence was submitted that Irish laborers drawn
from Chicago, northern Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and St.
Louis were being shipped by the railroads, ostensibly as rail-
road hands, to such points as Mattoon, Champaign, Peoria,
Carlinville, Bloomington, and Virginia. 54 Governor Matteson,
who was interested in the St. Louis and Alton railroad, was
said to be party to these colonization schemes. Douglas was
baldly characterized as the agent and tool of the Illinois Cen-
54 Tracy, Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 93-94.
178 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
tral, that giant monopoly whose interests would one day be
found to be diametrically opposed to the best interests of the
people of Illinois. It was extensively rumored that the agents
of Douglas had appealed to the Tammany Society of New
York for material aid and that this organization had set aside
$50,000 for the Douglas campaign. 55 " Look out for fraudu-
lent votes" was the warning cry sounded by republicans
everywhere.
Douglas* chief problem, growing out of the split of the
democracy, was to maintain control of Egypt, where there
were numerous signs of administration strength. An eleventh
hour attempt to play the role of peacemaker and to close the
schism was undertaken by Alexander H. Stephens, the Georgia
congressman, friend of Buchanan and of Douglas. When his
mission failed, democratic leaders from the southern border
states began to pour into Illinois; ex-Senator Jones of Tennes-
see, an ex-whig, was one of a large number of slave state
democrats who mounted the hustings in Illinois in behalf of
Douglas; by the first of November it was stated that "no less
than 41 slave holders" were campaigning for the "little
giant." 56
Lincoln was pictured by his opponents as a politician hav-
ing little claim to the support of the people of Illinois. In
twenty years of unlimited opportunities for public service he
had never initiated or seriously influenced the enactment of
any measure which had contributed in any substantial fashion
to the welfare of the state, or even 'of the nation. His most
conspicuous stand in congress was declared to have been his
emphatic opposition to the Mexican War; he was falsely
charged with having even voted against sending supplies to the
American army in Mexico.
Election day arrived November 2, cold, wet, and raw. The
fair weather brigade, preferring the comforts of the fireside
to a walk or ride of a mile or more in the rain, was with dif-
ficulty induced to present itself at the polls in force. This was
especially disastrous to the republican party which seemed to
s $ Rockford Republican, September 16, 1858; Chicago Press and Tribvne-,
September 10, 1858; New York Herald, September 15, 1858.
56 Chicago Democrat, November j, 1858.
D Administration -Democratic
vote over 5%
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 179
have inherited the old whig love of ease in bad weather; the
loss of votes was reckoned at fully 10,000. As the election
returns came in it became evident first that the republicans had
carried Chicago, then that Douglas had been given a majority
in both branches of the legislature, although the two republican
candidates for state office were elected, indicating that Illinois
had at length become a full-fledged republican state.
An analysis of the vote for legislature, moreover, showed
that the republican members of the new assembly represented
a population larger than the democratic members. This was
because an antique apportionment law based upon data that
had ceased to be facts eight years before compelled the north-
ern counties to produce 1,000 votes to offset 750 in the southern
section; this had made the election a contest of Egypt against
Canaan; Egypt was returned the victor.
Douglas defeated the republicans for the right to take the
lead in administering a rebuke to the proslavery position of the
national administration. Republican leaders regretted that
the profit to Douglas from the aid and comfort given him by
their eastern associates had more than covered the loss of
the " Buchaneers." 57 The latter indeed proved to be an impo-
tent faction, strong in the post offices, but polling only two per
cent of the total vote. The election of a democratic legislature
did not absolutely guarantee the return of Douglas to the
United States senate, for the "Danites" were determined to
defeat Douglas and worked to tie up the legislature so that
no choice of a senator could be made. Three holdover sen-
ators were said to be national democrats; and also, it was
claimed that, while the " Danites " had failed to elect any of
their own legislative candidates, three or four representatives
might be induced to see the danger of supporting the ambitious
man whom the Buchanan administration considered the most
dangerous enemy of the democratic party. Agents of the
administration were said to have been sent to Springfield to
influence members to shelve Douglas. 58
Most democrats were too well aware, however, that the
57 J. M. Palmer to Trumbull, December 9, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
58 Chicago Herald clipped in Illinois State Journal, November 17, 1858;
Ottawa Free Trader, January 7, 1859.
i8o THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
defeat of Douglas meant playing too much into the hands of
the republicans; to the relief of Douglas' friends the joint bal-
loting on January 6 revealed a rigid party line with all demo-
cratic votes cast in his favor. " Glory to God and the Sucker
Democracy, Douglas 54, Lincoln 41," was the word tele-
graphed to Douglas. "Announcement followed by shouts of
immense crowd present. Town wild with excitement. Demo-
crats firing salute Guns, music and whisky
rampant." 59 Back over the wires to Springfield flashed the
laconic comment of the victor, "Let the voice of the people
rule."
BS C. H. Lanphier to Douglas, January 5, 1859, Lanphier manuscripts. The
official vote was 54 to 46, House Journal, 1859, p. 32-33.
VIII. THE ELECTION OF 1860
DEMOCRATIC enjoyment of the fruits of the victory of
1858 was sharply interrupted by Governor Bissell's mes-
sage of January 5, 1859. His review of the state's affairs
concise, clear, and convincing revealed a sympathetic appre-
ciation of all progressive movements at work in Illinois. 1 To
the democrats it came as a painful reminder not only that the
popular vote was now in the hands of the republicans but that
as a result the control of the legislature might slip out of their
hands and with it the choice of the next United States senator.
The demand for a new apportionment law furnished them an
opportunity to try to save themselves from this calamity; with-
out consulting republican members of the committee, they at
once constructed a gerrymandering apportionment bill that
would sustain the ascendancy of their party and undertook to
place it upon the statute books. Republican leaders fought it
on the floor with every known filibustering device, 2 for the
proposition was regarded as worse than the infamous old
measure that had defeated Lincoln. Despite all opposition
and protest, however, it passed both houses by strict party vote
and was sent to Governor Bissell. After holding it in his hands
for several days the governor returned it with a stinging veto
message. 3 In order to leave the house without a quorum,
most of the republican members had withdrawn so that the
democrats were unable to pass the bill over the veto. This
revolutionary action forced the adjournment of the session
without action on various appropriation items and on several
hundred proposed bills. 4
1 House Journal, 1859, p. 20-29.
2 Rockford Republican, February 3, 1859.
8 Illinois State Journal, February 23, 1859.
4 B. C. Cook to Trumbull, January 14, Trumbull to B. C. Cook, January 20,
1859, Trumbull manuscripts; Alton Courier, February 25, 1859; Chicago Press
and Tribune, March 3, 1859; Ottawa Free Trader, March 12, 1859.
181
The summer of 1859, an off-year as far as elections were
concerned, was devoid of any real political excitement. The
municipal elections, which were held in the chief cities of the
state during the spring months, resulted in significant republi-
can victories in Chicago, Quincy, and Rockford. 5 These were
all regions of normal democratic strength, and these victories
were held to foreshadow unmistakably the success of the repub-
lican ticket in 1860. County elections in November had little
significance since personal considerations generally overbore
political preferences and party rules. In Ottawa, however,
excitement was aroused by an attempted fugitive slave rendition
which ended in a famous rescue case and as a result the repub-
licans rallied to the polls to reverse a normal democratic major-
ity. 6 In the Springfield district a special congressional election
resulted in a victory for John A. McClernand, democrat,
over John M. Palmer, republican; in this as in the general
political development the outcome was doubtless affected by
the reaction that followed the John Brown raid on Harper's
Ferry. 7
Like wildfire the news of this astonishing attempt had
spread over the country; John Brown, a fanatical abolitionist
with some twenty men, black and white, had treasonably seized
a United States arsenal, had raised the standard of revolt and
liberation, had placed guns in the hands of Negroes of
slaves and had sought to deal a blow at all the forces
of law and order. Defeated in his mad purpose, he had
fallen into the hands of the state authorities. What then
did all this mean? Democrats, eager to exploit the inci-
dent for political purposes, inquired peremptorily whether
this revolutionary attempt could be construed as anything
but the logical fruit of republicanism, of the " irrepressible
conflict" doctrine of Abe Lincoln and Senator Seward!
The republican party, they declared, means nothing -more
nor less than open defiance of the laws and authority of
the United States and in the end, as a natural consequence,
revolution and anarchy. After all, is there any real distinc-
5 Illinois State Journal, April 13, 27, May 18, 1859.
6 Ottawa Free Trader, November, 1859; Rockford Register, November 19,
1859.
7 Illinois State Journal, November 2, 16, 1859.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 183
tion between abolitionists and "black" republicans on the
subject of slavery? 8
All this was extremely embarrassing to Illinois republicans,
who had generally regarded the raid as the product of a dis-
ordered brain. Unable adequately to refute these charges,
they involuntarily became admirers of the bravery and daring
involved in the exploit; if it was not the result of an insanity,
for which allowances should be made, it was a new brand of
courage such as the country had rarely known. John Brown
was pictured as a mild, inoffensive, peaceable citizen trans-
formed by his sufferings in Kansas at the hands of proslavery
cutthroats into a patriarchal, though misguided, champion of
freedom who planned to wreak a bloody revenge upon the
institution of slavery. When with Spartan courage the stern
old Puritan paid with his life the penalty for his rashness, the
reaction became even more marked. Solemn public meetings
of protest were held in several northern Illinois cities on the
day of the execution, prayers were offered up for his soul, and
the church bells tolled in commemoration of the martyr to the
" irrepressible conflict."
As the campaign of 1860 drew near, Douglas made plans
for his own presidential nomination and election. His political
success since the Kansas-Nebraska act had been the result of
a two-faced interpretation of his pet doctrine which gave him
the advantage of appearing both to break down and to uphold
the slave interest. His republican opponents realized, how-
ever, that no ingenuity could long keep these antagonistic
elements in harmony. 9 The Freeport doctrine had under-
mined his popularity in the slave states. Southerners who
accepted, as well as those who rejected his explanation, pointed
out that it merely demonstrated the need of congress giving
more adequate protection to slavery in the territories a
tacit demand that Douglas accept the idea of congressional
intervention to protect slavery. 10
8 Ottawa Free Trader, October 22, 29, 1859; Rockford Republican, Octo-
ber 27, 1859; Mound City Emporium, November 3, 1859; Belleville Democrat,
November 5, 1859; Joliet Signal, December 6, 1859.
8 Writings of Lincoln, 5: 18, 19.
10 Richmond Enquirer, September 10, clipped in Illinois State Journal,
September 29, 1858.
1 84 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Douglas was not prone to overlook the political necessity
of courting the south. Promptly after his victory in Novem-
ber, 1858, he had left for the southland, ostensibly on business
and in pursuit of health, but in part to feel the pulse of the
slave states. All his energies were bent toward making him-
self agreeable to the hospitable planters who welcomed him;
his references to the Dred Scott decision indicated unqualified
acceptance, while the version of the Freeport doctrine which
he presented was of innocuous innocence. He announced him-
self in sympathy with the manifest destiny of the United States
to acquire Mexico, Central America, and Cuba.
When he found, however, that the south was so far ready
to accept him at his word as to look to him for a champion of
congressional intervention to protect slavery, Douglas made
haste to backwater. Only on the matter of Cuban annexation,
which he had always supported, could he stand squarely with
the southern democrats. 11 For the rest he had hardly returned
to Washington before he was breaking lances with Jefferson
Davis and other southern democratic champions who argued
in favor of protective legislation for slavery.in the territories. 12
Douglas declared himself unwilling to support any proposi-
tion to interfere with territorial regulation of property rights,
whether in horses, mules, or Negroes; he was even unwilling
to indorse congressional intervention to prevent polygamy in
Utah. Further, in the face of a growing demand in the south
for the reopening of the African slave trade, he placed himself
on record as opposed to the illicit traffic that was beginning to
assume such large proportions. The fact that he was by such
a course manifestly alienating political support was made more
potent by President Buchanan's efforts to stir up the southern
democrats against him. Douglas' leadership of the democratic
party the president persistently challenged; upon his arrival
11 His own party in Illinois backed him on this proposition. Joliet Signal,
February i, March i, 1859. While republican leaders and journals naturally
inclined to oppose, some felt that inasmuch as " acquisition is a trait of American
character," it was good strategy to come out for territorial expansion and to
lead off boldly for the spread of the free institutions of the country. Belleville
Advocate, December 29, 1858, February 9, 1859; Alton Courier, January 21,
J 8S9J J. M. Palmer to Trumbull, December 9, 1858; J. P. Cooper to Trumbull,
December 14, 1858, Trumbull to B. C. Cook, January 20, 1859, Trumbull
manuscripts.
12 Congressional Globe, 35 congress, 2 session, 1243-1245, 1259.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 185
in Washington the Illinoisian found that the democratic con-
gressional caucus at Buchanan's instigation had deposed him
from the chairmanship of the committee on territories.
Such a thrust must have rankled in the heart of the " little
giant," especially since the practical issue before the country
was the territorial question. To clear up his position on that
subject Douglas wrote a labored exposition of his views for
Harper's Magazine ; obviously facing northward, he sought to
establish firmer constitutional foundation for the Freeport doc-
trine. 13 Here at last, in Douglas' labors to maintain his
strength north of Mason and Dixon's line, was a tacit admis-
sion of the effect of the attacks of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln,
meanwhile, pressed the offensive; campaigning in Ohio in the
fall of 1859, he made the point that Douglas' doctrine of
unfriendly legislation was equivalent to saying that " a thing
may be lawfully driven away from where it has the lawful right
to be." 14 At Cincinnati he analyzed Douglas' record in a
speech which was printed with the title, " Douglas an enemy
to the North. Reasons why the North should oppose Judge
Douglas. His duplicity exposed." So scathing was the indict-
ment that it was later circulated by Douglas' supporters in the
south in order to win popularity there.
All these developments were bringing Lincoln into the
limelight. Up to this time he had not been a prominent figure
in national politics. To be sure, in the Philadelphia conven-
tion of 1856 he had displayed strength in the race for vice
presidential nomination, second only to the victor, William L.
Dayton. Yet his name was not mentioned in connection with
the presidency. As late as June, 1858, the republican delegates
journeying to the state convention at Springfield had found
from a straw vote that their preferences for the presidency
were overwhelmingly for Seward; Lincoln received only a
casual vote. 15 The Lincoln-Douglas campaign, however,
worked a revolution in sentiment, in large part because of
the resentment of the Illinois leaders at the advice of eastern
republicans that Douglas be returned to the senate. In view
13 Harper's Magazine, 19: 519-537.
14 Chicago Press and Tribune, October 6, 1859.
15 Missouri Republican, June 24, 1858, clipped in Sparks, Lincoln-Douglas
Debates of 1858, 3 : 24.
i86 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
of the feeling that "Seward, Greeley & Co." had materially
contributed to Lincoln's defeat, the decision was reached that
Illinois ought to throw its strength to anyone rather than
Seward. 16 Lincoln stock boomed immediately. After a few
timid suggestions by party journals that Lincoln's name ought
to have a place on the presidential ticket in 1860, the Olney
Times, November 19, 1858, boldly printed "Abram Lincoln
for President for 1860" at the head of its editorial columns.
By the following summer Lincoln in the minds of Illinoisians
had become first-rate presidential timber. 17 Impressed with
this development by the little coterie of Springfield politicians,
he allowed himself to be groomed for the coming race, though
he modestly admitted that he did not consider himself " fit
for the Presidency." 18 The radical edges were carefully
smoothed off; he placed himself on record as opposed to the
repeal of the fugitive slave law; in his Ohio speeches he sought
to convince conservatives that his "house-divided" prophecy
was neither novel nor sectional doctrine; he declared himself
willing to support a national ticket in 1860 with the name of
a southerner at either end. He assumed the role of peace-
maker in the republican party. The German republicans were
restless as a result of an amendment to the Massachusetts con-
stitution, adopted, it was said, under republican auspices, which
provided for political restrictions upon newly naturalized citi-
zens. Lincoln therefore gave assurances that he was opposed
to the Massachusetts provision; and the republican state com-
mittee through its chairman, N. B. Judd, published a strong
letter of repudiation. 19 The conviction grew that " Old Abe "
was the man about whom to rally to full strength of the repub-
lican party. The republican club of Springfield resolved itself
into a "Lincoln club" to use all honorable means to secure
the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. 20 The movement spread
and Lincoln clubs appeared on every hand.
16 E. Peck to Trumbull, November 22, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
17 Chicago Democrat, November n, 1858; Illinois State Journal, Novem-
ber 17, 1858; Rockford Republican, December 9, 1858.
18 Writings of Lincoln, 5: 31.
19 Ibid., 5:26; Koerner, Memoirs, 2:75.
20 Canton Weekly Register, November i, 1859; Aurora Beacon, Novem-
ber 10, 1859; Central Illinois Gazette, December 7, 1859; Illinois State Journal,
January 18, 1860.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 187
Chief attention in national politics was centering on the
fate of Douglas at the hands of the democratic party; the
family quarrel was steadily growing more bitter and the two
wings voiced their open defiance of each other. Douglas,
charged with apostasy from the party creed and with a desire
for self-aggrandizement, was convinced that the proper method
to clear himself was to secure the democratic nomination at
Charleston upon such a platform as he could accept. Though
he stood firmly against congressional intervention in the terri-
tories, he admitted the need of some measure to protect the
states and territories against acts of violence like the Harper's
Ferry conspiracy. 21
The party machinery in Illinois was set in motion to enable
Douglas to put his full strength into the field; a list of every
able supporter who could be present at Charleston in the
capacity of delegate or alternate was made up and completed
at the state democratic convention. 22 In order to outinaneuver
the "nationals" the Douglas wing had fixed an early date of
meeting, lest the latter might act first and set up an embar-
rassing claim to speak for the Illinois democracy. On January
4, 1860, therefore, the Douglasite convention adopted resolu-
tions which reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform of 1856, objected
to any attempt to force upon the party new issues and new tests,
and referred all controverted questions to the adjudication of
the supreme court; it also pledged the Illinois democracy to
support any candidate nominated at Charleston. 23
The "Danites" held their conclave six days later and, as
the Douglasites feared, selected a delegation to claim admission
to the seats at Charleston allotted to Illinois. Their platform
contained a clear-cut repudiation of the Freeport doctrine,
affirmed the Calhoun theory, and upheld the decision of the
supreme court in the case of Dred Scott; the policy of the
Buchanan administration, especially on the slavery question,
was given unqualified approval. There was a platform without
equivocation : there was none of the trimming practiced by the
21 See his speech of January 23, 1860, Congressional Globe, 36 congress, i
session, 553-555.
Douglas to Lanphier, October i, 1859, January x, 1860, Lanphier manu-
scripts.
23 Illinois State Register, January 5, 1860.
i88 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Douglasites, " ' here a streak of lean and there a streak of fat,'
now 'a little turtle and now a little pork,'" as one critic put
it; 24 but it was the work of an impotent and discontented
minority destined to count for little in the active campaign.
These were practically the lines upon which the Charleston
convention later divided and rent the party in twain. The
Douglas platform underwent no change; it was the work of
the Illinois democratic delegation in congress under the direc-
tion of Senator Douglas himself. It represented every con-
cession that it was deemed possible to make to the south; the
Illinois delegation, moreover, was selected so as to include
the " men with the best political record on the Slavery question,"
men " especially favorably known at the South." 25 The plat-
form supported by the southern wing at Charleston covered
the ground of the " Danite " resolutions, with an additional
plank incorporating Jefferson Davis' declaration of the duty
of congress to provide adequate protection to slave property
in the territories. The leader of the Illinois Douglas delega-
tion at Charleston was Colonel William A. Richardson, whose
abilities in political management and manipulation were suffi-
ciently recognized to give him the larger role of leader of the
Douglas forces in general. Fresh from Washington and from
close contact with Douglas, he conducted an aggressive cam-
paign to capture the machinery of organization. In the
preliminary skirmishing the Douglas men drew first blood;
technical points were decided in their favor, and the conven-
tion refused to admit the contesting " Danite" delegation from
Illinois headed by Isaac Cook. The real test came on the
adoption of a platform. Douglas had instructed Richardson
to be prepared to withdraw his name in the event of a victory
for the Davis doctrine. When, however, the southern majority
report was rejected for the Douglas minority resolutions, the
southern hotspurs voiced their defiance and promptly seceded.
Under the two-thirds rule, the " rump " convention balloted
in vain; Douglas led with a large majority until it was voted
to adjourn to meet June 18 at Baltimore.
24 Illinois State Journal, January 18, 1860.
25 Douglas to Lanphier, October i, December 31, 1859, January i, 1860,
Lanphier manuscripts.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 189
In the interim Lincoln had his innings. A fortunate com-
bination of forces in Illinois operated to bring his name to the
fore. There had been for some time a growing fear of
Seward's radicalism with a consequent decline in the stock
of the New York leader. Old-line whigs in the central part of
the state had never been reconciled to Seward's strength ; Egypt
was beginning to break with the democracy, but any tendency
to go over to the republicans would end if a candidate tainted
with abolitionism headed the ticket. Conservative Illinois busi-
ness men objected to Seward's analysis of "labor" states and
" capital " or " slave " states, since there was more capital in
good old New England than in the southern states combined; 26
they inclined to favor Edward Bates of Missouri, but his name
could not be considered if the votes of the Germans were to
be obtained. The German vote preferred Seward or Fremont
but would go enthusiastically for Lincoln. 27 In fact Lincoln's
moderation appealed to all factions, and his zealous supporters
were meeting undreamed-of success. County convention after
county convention indorsed his candidacy as the choice of the
republican party. Encouraged by this success, his Illinois sup-
porters began a quiet but active campaign in a larger field.
They won a preliminary victory when Chicago was selected
as the place of meeting of the national nominating convention,
although at the time this city was considered fairly neutral
ground, since Illinois was not yet, in national councils, regarded
as having any strong presidential candidate. By March, how-
ever, not only Illinois but a steadily widening circle of states
in the northwest were flying Lincoln's colors. " It seems as if
the whole West was about to rise en masse in favor of the
nomination of Abraham Lincoln by the Chicago Convention.
Never did the proposal of any man's name elicit such an over-
whelming testimonial to his fitness and the propriety of his
nomination. Paper after paper throughout not only Illinois
but the whole northwest, has put his name at the mast head,
until the ones which have not done so are the marked
exceptions." 28
26 Russel Hinckley to Trumbull, March 28, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts.
27 G. Koerner to Trumbull, March 15, April 16, 1860, ibid.
28 Central Illinois Gazette, March 28, 1860.
190 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
State politics temporarily attracted 'the attention of the
republicans from the developments in the national canvass.
The previous winter had witnessed a sharp struggle in repub-
lican circles over the gubernatorial nomination. Norman B.
Judd, for sixteen years senator from Cook county, was put
forward as the representative of the old democratic element
of the party; his rival was Leonard Swett, who was cham-
pioned by republicans of whig antecedents who claimed that
the principle of rotation ought to be recognized in the governor-
ship. Judd was the stronger and abler candidate but suffered
from a set of scathing articles against him in the Chicago
Democrat, which voiced the feelings of John Wentworth, his
rival in the republican as of yore in the democratic ranks. 29
The preconvention contest furnished an excellent opportunity
for a dark horse to enter the field; one appeared in the person
of Richard Yates of Jacksonville, a devoted and capable repub-
lican, who had been a member of congress as a whig at the
time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act. To the sur-
prise of almost everyone, Judd was defeated when the repub-
lican state convention was held at Decatur on May 9 ; and the
nomination given to Yates. Francis H. Hoffman was nomi-
nated for lieutenant governor by acclamation to honor the
German vote that he represented. The rest of the state officers
were renominated for their respective stations. The general
platform reaffirmed the Bloomington and Springfield platforms
of 1856 and 1858, declared against change in the naturaliza-
tion laws and against discrimination between native born and
naturalized citizens, commended the proposed homestead law,
and demanded an economical administration of the state
government. 30
The state convention also completed the arrangements for
participation in the Chicago convention. Resolutions were
adopted which instructed the delegation to the Chicago con-
vention to use all honorable means to secure Lincoln's nomina-
tion. Thereupon, " for fifteen minutes, cheer upon cheer went
up from the crowd." 31 Upon consultation with Lincoln, Gus-
29 Chicago Democrat, November 7, 1859; Jollet Signal, December 13, 1859.
30 Chicago Press and Tribune, May n, 1860; Illinois State Journal, May
16, 1860.
31 Arnold, Life of Abraham Lincoln, 162.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 191
tave Koerner, Norman B. Judd, Orville H. Browning, and
Judge David Davis were selected as delegates-at-large. A week
later they were in Chicago, the center of a noisy bustling crowd
at the Lincoln headquarters, assisted by Yates, Jesse K. Dubois,
Palmer, Judge Stephen T. Logan, and others.
The metropolis of the northwest had enthusiastically
accepted the obligations that accompanied the choice of that
city for the national convention. A huge wooden structure,
christened the " Great Wigwam," rose rapidly on Lake Street
with a seating capacity of ten thousand persons. But even it
was entirely inadequate for the accommodation of the tremen-
dous crowds of hilarious holiday-makers that kept streaming
in. The hotels, especially the Tremont House, where 1,500
persons were stored away, were largely taken up by various
state delegations and by campaign headquarters. Private
hospitality made up for what the hostelries were unable to
provide; the latchstrings were all out in true western style.
Every now and then above the uproar of the crowds would be
heard the din of martial music, a band would come in sight
heading a procession of Seward or Cameron or Bates support-
ers in uniform attire bearing banners and mottoes; there was
marching and countermarching with friendly clashes between
the rival paraders. The attitude of the convention crowd as
a whole was that the republican party should wipe out a
disgraceful reputation; neither the straight-laced puritanism
of the antislavery movement nor the dignity and decorum of
whig respectability should longer characterize it. On the con-
trary, it was now to show a spirit, an abandon that had hereto-
fore been the monopoly of the democrats. To that end
"Captain Whisky" was enlisted as evidence that the repub-
licans had imbibed " the spirit as well as the substance of the
old Democratic party;" accordingly, midnight processions,
serenades, and champagne suppers drove dull care away in
the satanic style "that would do honor to Old Kaintuck on a
bust." 32
Behind the scenes party workers were busy preparing their
campaigns; there was caucusing and speech-making; there was
scheming, intriguing, and bargaining. The uninstructed dele-
82 Halstead, National Political Conventions, 121, 140, 145.
192 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
gates were courted on every side. When the convention opened,
Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase, Simon Cameron, and the
others seemed to be getting nowhere, and current political
gossip conceded but two important republican camps: the
" irrepressibles " who backed the favorite, Seward, and the
" conservatives " who talked of the unpopularity of Seward's
ultraisms and gave their backing to "Old Abe."
Seward was opposed by all the doubtful states Indiana,
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey as well as Illinois; as yet, how-
ever, they had given their united support to no one candidate.
But the favorable Illinois atmosphere was beginning to count
for Lincoln. During the preliminaries of the convention the
uninstructed Indiana delegation was gradually induced, aided
by the logic and eloquence of Koerner and Browning, to throw
their support to Lincoln rather than to Bates, while Pennsyl-
vania, though committed to Cameron, its favorite son, grad-
ually became more favorably inclined toward Lincoln. "Old
Abe," the representative of conservatism, respectability, and
availability, went the current of talk, will win the race. 33
In the tense atmosphere, the convention was organized
and quickly disposed of the regular business. The platform
was then drawn up and adopted. It was in various ways
influenced by the Decatur resolutions which were presented by
Koerner, the Illinois member of the committee; 34 but the
general draft, especially the forcible indictment of the sins of
the democratic party, was the work of Judge William Jessup
of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the committee. The eastern-
ers insisted on a tariff plank, but it was toned down into a very
harmless declaration for incidental protection.
Though there was no definite alignment over the platform,
Seward seemed to be gaining strength in a very subtle way.
His opponents had hoped to down him by forcing the adoption
of a rule that a majority of the whole electoral college should
be required to nominate candidates. This was almost equiva-
lent to a two-thirds rule; but although the majority report
recommended this method, it was rejected by the convention
33 Halstead, National Political Conventions, 122; Koerner, Memoirs, 2: 88-89.
34 With the aid of Carl Schurz he was able to secure the incorporation of a
plank opposing any change in the naturalization laws and any legislation by the
states to impair the rights of naturalized citizens. Ibid., 2: 87.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 193
for a simple majority rule. Although Seward's supporters
were victorious in every preliminary skirmish, Lincoln's
strength became immediately apparent when on the third day
the convention began to ballot. The Wigwam was packed with
a noisy Lincoln crowd, for the strategy of the Illinois workers
had seen the emptiness of parades and of display on the city's
streets; instead their time and energy had been utilized to
provide Lincoln supporters with tickets before they were dis-
tributed to others. The Lincolnites had taken little part in
the general celebrations, but were saved for the convention-
hall orgies of sound, and when the time came they were ready
to overwhelm their opponents with the reverberating Lincoln
"yawp."
After an irritating delay the nominating commenced;
Seward was named and applause filled the hall. Judd, in a
few highly impressive words, offered the name of "Honest
Abe" Lincoln; and the Illinois stalwarts cut loose with a
deafening shriek. Other candidates were brought out the
crowd waited in expectancy. Caleb B. Smith of Indiana
seconded the nomination of Lincoln and a deafening roar
followed. Then Seward's candidacy was seconded, and his
supporters shrieked their applause with an infernal intensity
that surpassed their rivals; Lincoln's supporters were given
another turn; and the hall became a riot of sound that defied
description, while Henry S. Lane, republican candidate for
governor in Indiana, leaped upon a table and madly performed
with hat and cane. All this had its significance. The caucusing
had continued during the whole night that preceded this session,
and delegates had arrived but half convinced as to the nature
of the first vote they should cast and without a program for
the balloting that would follow. The shouting impressed even
the most skeptical that the contest would resolve itself into a
duel between Seward and Lincoln and that the westerner had
a chance to win. The Indiana delegation became convinced
that Henry S. Lane, their leader, was correct in his desperate
insistence that their vote go as a unit to Lincoln, lest Seward
be nominated and kill the hopes of the republican ticket in the
hoosier state. The Cameron men were satisfied that their
candidate had no chance and showed less uncertainty in their
194 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
decision to throw their strength to Lincoln at the time when
it would bring about his nomination by the convention. Assured
by Lincolnites that their favorite would be rewarded with a
cabinet appointment, the Pennsylvania delegation repeatedly
retired for vote consultation and delayed the roll call much to
the amusement and disgust of the convention throng. 35
The first ballot was taken; Seward led with 173^, Lin-
coln was in second place with 102, while Cameron, Chase, and
Bates each received approximately 50 votes. Seward lacked
sixty votes of the required majority. As the balloting pro-
ceeded, Cameron's name was withdrawn and Lincoln gained
79 votes, bringing him within 3^ votes of his rival. Here
was impressive evidence of the strength of his candidacy.
Amid intense excitement the roll was called for the third
ballot; busy pencils tabulating the vote counted a total of
23 1 Y-2 votes for Lincoln, within I y 2 of the nomination.
A stuttered announcement of a change of front by the
Ohio chairman turned the trick for Lincoln. The statement
was made in a tense silence of expectancy; then again burst
out the Lincoln "yawp," swelling into a wild hosanna of vic-
tory. It was followed by a stampede for "Old Abe:" ten
Maine votes, ten Massachusetts votes, and the whole of the
Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, and Minnesota votes were changed.
Amid the pandemonium, a man posted on the roof to signal
the results to the huge crowd of ten or twenty thousand waiting
anxiously outside demanded the meaning of the demonstra-
tion. One of the secretaries, tally sheet in hand, shouted,
" Fire the salute ! Abe Lincoln is nominated ! " The message
was relayed to the anxious mass of humanity below, which in
turn took up the roar with insane energy, while the booming
of the cannon scarcely made itself heard above the din. 36
When the enthusiastic demonstration finally subsided,
William M. Evarts, the Seward spokesman, moved that the
nomination be made unanimous; this motion passed after the
usual indorsements of the successful candidates, followed by
a brief speech in behalf of Lincoln by Orville H. Browning.
In concluding its work, the convention nominated Hannibal
35 Halstead, National Political Conventions, 143.
36 Ibid., 149-150; Illinois State Journal, May 23, 1860.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 195
Hamlin of remote Maine as Lincoln's running mate. The
news of the nominations was telegraphed broadcast, and before
many hours almost every town and village in Illinois was
reproducing in miniature the scenes of the western metropolis.
Lincoln enthusiasts rallied their resources to concoct cele-
brations; processions formed of noisy youths bearing rails
through the streets, tar barrels were heaped on blazing bon-
fires, drums were beaten, old cannons were dragged out to rend
the night air with their disturbing blasts. 37 Hoarse throats
were quenched with torrents of liquor, and the excitement con-
tinued until intoxication or exhaustion prostrated the joyous
celebrants.
As a part of the Springfield festivities Lincoln was sere-
naded at his home by a large crowd of enthusiasts, who went
wild at the appearance of his tall gaunt form and at the well-
chosen remarks he addressed to them. The following evening
the state capital held a formal jubilee when a committee headed
by George Ashmun, president of the republican convention,
came down from Chicago to notify Lincoln of his nomination
and to receive his acceptance. An elaborate dinner was served
to the committee; and, after the notification ceremony, a vast
assemblage gathered in a ratification meeting in the statehouse
square to listen to the speech-making. Brass bands marched
through the streets; exploding fireworks sent out their lurid
light; parties gathered in the hotels to drink toast after toast
to the American union, to the republican party, and to its
presidential nominee.
Republican enthusiasm continued undisturbed by the nomi-
nation of rival candidates at Baltimore. Douglas' friends
triumphed and secured his nomination from the adjourned
meeting of the democratic convention; the southern democrats,
however, put their own candidate in the field in the person of
John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Old conservative union
men engineered a new movement which resulted in the forma-
tion of the constitutional union or national union party, with
John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett as its candi-
dates. The scattering Illinois supporters of each of these
37 In Springfield church bells were enlisted to the disgust of the democrats.
Illinois State Register, May 19, 23, 1860.
196 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
candidates hustled out their tickets for presidential electors
and for state officers and entered the field with as much enthu-
siasm as they could rally.
The republicans of Illinois had the advantage of having
harmonized on their state candidates and of having entered
the field several weeks before their opponents. The Douglas
candidates were not selected until June 13, when it was found
impossible to agree on a state ticket of any real strength;
James C. Allen of Crawford county was nominated for gov-
ernor over Samuel A. Buckmaster and James L. D. Morrison;
Lewis W. Ross for lieutenant governor, George H. Campbell
for secretary of state, Bernard Arntzen for auditor, Hugh
Maher for treasurer, and Dr. E. R. Roe for superintendent
of public instruction completed the ticket. 38 The Breckinridge
party was made up of the remnants of the Buchanan national
democrats. It became more than ever a corporal's guard of
officeholders. Its main strength lay in the southern counties
where proslavery sentiment flourished.
The Bell-Everett movement in Illinois had a subtle impor-
tance in the campaign. It was the feeble successor of old-line
whiggery and know nothingism ; but it had a certain strength
in southern Illinois, where there was no effective rival of
Douglas democracy, and in the central counties, where a slight
shifting of the vote might change the outcome of the election.
The national union state convention at Decatur, August n,
nominated an electoral ticket and a full state ticket headed by
John T. Stuart for governor; the most prominent delegate
present was Judge Buckner S. Morris, a bitter opponent of
republicanism; he had supported Douglas in 1858 and declared
that Douglas had owed his election to American votes. 39 After
declaring himself willing to support Douglas or any democrat
in order to defeat Lincoln, Morris became a controlling force
in the state central committee. This naturally confirmed repub-
lican suspicions that the union movement was a ruse to help
Douglas accomplish the defeat of Lincoln. 40
The campaign was now in full swing driven on by the
38 Illinois State Register, June 15, 1860.
39 Illinois State Journal, August 22, 1860.
40 Chicago Democrat, August 15, 1860; Belleville Advocate, July 27, August
24, 1860.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 197
conviction that on the outcome in Illinois would to a large
extent depend the result of the presidential contest. The gay
holiday atmosphere of the canvass makes it stand out as one
of the most picturesque of presidential elections; the prevailing
enthusiasm duplicated that of the Lincoln-Douglas contest of
1858 with the situation reversed in Lincoln's favor. This
time he had the advantage of being identified with the typical
western spirit. The "rail-splitter" became the idol of the
people ; his early struggle in the wilderness carried more weight
in the democratic west than the reputation of his rival. "Abe
Lincoln; in Indiana he followed the plow and the path of
rectitude; in Illinois he mauled rails and Stephen A. Douglas,"
was the eloquent motto on many a Lincoln banner. 41 Was he
not too the representative of the party that stood for opening
up the lands of the west to free settlement by the pioneer?
In vain did his opponents point to the emptiness of his political
career; it was more important that he embodied a spirit that
the people of the frontier could understand.
Early in June republican campaign preparations had
begun to take form. The unique feature of the canvass was
the "wide awake" organization. A company of enthusias-
tic and "wide awake" Chicago republicans was organized to
take a prominent place in the party parades and processions. 4 ?
The idea was immediately taken up throughout the state until
every village and hamlet had its "wide awakes," composed
largely of young men, some under voting age. Shortly after
nightfall one "hears the strains of martial music, and beholds
a large body of men, bearing blazing torches, and marching
in fine military order. Each man bears a thin rail, surmounted
with a large swinging lamp and a small American flag, bearing
the names of Lincoln and Hamlin. The uniform of the pri-
vates is a black enamelled circular cape, quite full and of good
length, and a glazed military fatigue cap, with a brass or silver
eagle in front. Some companies are uniformed with blue, red,
drab and silver gray caps and capes, and relieve the monotony
of the darker uniforms. The captains and non-commissioned
officers are distinguished by an Inverness over-coat, with black
41 Illinois State Journal, July 24, 1860.
42 Chicago Press and Tribune, June 8, 1860.
198 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
cape and undress military caps. In some companies the cap-
tain carries a red, the aids a tri-colored, and the lieutenants a
blue or green lantern; in others, the captain merely carried
a painted baton. The measured tread, steady front and un-
broken lines speak of strict attention to drill and the effective
manner in which the various bodies are managed by their
officers shows conclusively that men of military experience
control their movements." 43
A half million young men constituted the "wide awake"
army of the union. They were the nucleus of parades, supple-
mented by marchers bearing banners and mottoes. Meetings
of tremendous size brought together in impressive demonstra-
tions the companies from neighboring towns. The great Spring-
field meeting at the fair grounds attracted a crowd of over
fifty thousand people. Lincoln was present but refused to
respond to the clamor for a speech except to say a few words
of acknowledgment of the honor conferred upon him. Four
thousand "wide awakes" marched in a procession that passed
for nearly two hours before the local "wigwam." The cele-
bration on the occasion of Seward's speech in Chicago in
October is said to have attracted over one hundred thousand
strangers to the city; the Wigwam was the center of the
festivities, and 10,000 "wide awakes" carried their torches in
the procession. 44 " The prairies are on fire," was the announce-
ment that went out from republican headquarters.
Lincoln himself refused to take any direct part in the
campaign. His record was subjected to careful scrutiny from
every angle and old charges against him were revamped, but
he was wise enough to recognize that he had capable friends
campaigning in his behalf and that direct disavowal even of
false charges would be playing into the hands of his oppo-
nents. He maintained his headquarters at the statehouse at
Springfield and conferred with some of the campaign speakers,
but at the same time displayed a leisurely hospitality toward
all visitors with whom he conversed, not so much on political
matters as on personal experiences and interests.
Effective work on the stump was done by Senator Trum-
43 Chicago Democrat, September 24, 1860.
"Ibid., October 3, 1860.
THE ELECTION OF 1860 199
bull, Judd, Yates, Gillespie, Palmer, Koerner, Wentworth, and
others, with outside aid from Senator James R. Doolittle and
Carl Schurz of Wisconsin and Francis P. Blair of Missouri.
It is to be noted that most of these leaders were former demo-
crats disgusted with the subserviency of the "dough-faces" to the
southern slave power; the talent of the democratic party had
to a large extent been transferred to the republican organiza-
tion. They carried with them the old fighting spirit, far supe-
rior to anything that old whiggery had been able to arouse in
its ranks, and were always ready for the hard work necessary
for the success of the new party. Jesse K. Dubois had frankly
admitted : " My observation is that we old line whigs belonging
to the Republican ranks are not worth a curse to carry on a
campaign and its only life is in the Democratic part of the
ranks." 45
The democratic party started the canvass at a complete
disadvantage. The republican campaign was well under way
before Douglas' nomination was accomplished; then the news
reached party members well-nigh nervously exhausted, by the
long-drawn-out fight at Charleston and Baltimore. An attempt
was made at developing enthusiasm ; much was accomplished
but not enough to destroy the impression that whereas the
democracy had occupied the position of vantage in 1858, it was
now relegated to second place in the matter of popular favor.
Political oratory on behalf of Douglas was of a decidedly
inferior brand. Realizing this, the "little giant" broke all
traditions and entered the hustings in person, much to the dis-
gust of his republican opponents. 46 He was soon in the midst
of a most extraordinary canvass which took him on a four
through New England, into the southern seaboard states, and
back to the region of the middle states, until, nearly exhausted
by his strenuous efforts and convinced by the October elections
that Lincoln's success was inevitable, he repaired to the south-
ern states to labor in behalf of the union and the peace of the
country.
The Douglas leaders in Illinois, left largely to their own
45 J. K. Dubois to Trumbull, July 17, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts; cf.
Illinois State Journal, May 23, 1860.
48 Belleville Advocate, July 27, August 24, 1860.
200 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
resources, waged a spiritless campaign. The old charges as to
Negro equality were rung against the republican party; the
old wolf cry of abolitionism was shouted without effect. The
German vote was courted on the strength of Arntzen's place
on the state ticket; appeals were made to the Americans as
union men. Since the legislative canvass which was to deter-
mine the possibility of Trumbull's reelection to the senate was
second in importance only to the presidential contest, there was
a desire on the part of some of the more unscrupulous to save
as much as possible from the ruins. In an effort to duplicate
the victory of 1858 by capturing the middle counties the demo-
crats colonized doubtful points with Irish laborers from
Chicago. 47
It proved, however, a losing fight. Election day on Novem-
ber 6 bore out the forecast of the October elections in the
pivotal states of Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio. Lincoln
swept the north with a quarter of a million more votes than
his doughty opponent. Illinois with a Lincoln plurality of
1, 200 placed itself squarely in the republican column. Breckin-
ridge and Bell each received only one per cent of the vote.
Richard Yates and the entire republican state ticket were car-
ried into office by 12,000 votes. Democratic control of the
legislature was destroyed and the reelection of Senator Trum-
bull was assured.
One of the most remarkable features of the campaign and
election was the increase of republican strength in Egypt. In
the region below Alton the party made a fourfold increase
over Fremont's vote in 1856. Republicanism had fought an
uphill battle in the southern counties, and these important
gains were made against great odds. John A. Logan, the
champion of Egyptian democracy, contested every inch of
ground that was lost, sometimes by methods hardly scrupulous
in character. It was by such tactics that the determined con-
gressman acquired the cognomen of "Dirty Work" Logan.
By threats of mob violence he compelled the editors and pub-
47 Amos C. Babcock to Trumbull, August 27, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts;
Canton Weekly Register, October n, 30, 1860; Illinois State Journal, October
10, 31, 1860. S. G. Ward of Elgin explained in a letter to Trumbull, January 14,
1860 [1861], how he had colonized eleven Kane county republican voters in
Peoria. Trumbull manuscripts.
Presidential K
Election
1860
.e
Si
l<
Q(1 fX
^---$
Over
75%
65-75%
55-65%
Less than 5S%
Q Union (Bell) over 5%
D Democratic (Breckin-
ridge) over 5%
THE ELECTION OF 1860 201
lishers of the Franklin Democrat at Benton to sell out at a
ruinous sacrifice, because they had hauled down the Douglas
and Johnson banner and were about to raise the standard of
Lincoln and Hamlin. 48 Voters of republican leanings were
reminded that schoolmasters had been dismissed for voting for
Fremont in 1856; clergymen, antislavery propagandists, were
threatened with an investment in the martyr's garb tar and
feathers; the Reverend Mr. Ferree of Lebanon was pelted
with eggs on the streets of Cairo while making a republican
speech. 49 In spite of everything, however, the conversion of
a native occasionally took place, while an influx of intelligent
immigration from the eastern states continued to carry the
leaven of republican sentiment into "dough-faced" Egypt. 50
48 See statement of A. Sellers, Jr., and G. Sellers, in Illinois State Journal,
September 20, 1860. A number of new republican papers made their appear-
ance in the southern portion of the state following Lincoln's nomination. Chicago
Press and Tribune, June n, 1860. Thomas H. Dawson sold out the Louisville
[Illinois] Democrat to undertake the publication of a republican paper and the
Mi. Carmel Register took the Lincoln train.
49 Golconda Herald, March 9, clipped in Chicago Press and Tribune, April
16, 1860; Cairo Gazette, July 26, 1860.
50 B. L. Wiley to Trumbull, January 10, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts;
Chicago Press and Tribune, October 16, 1860.
IX. THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY
AN IMPERATIVE need in the development of Illinois
was labor. Glowing words of welcome met the incoming
settler or toiler; he was assured that "the product of labor is
the only real wealth," and lecturers traveled about discussing
" the dignity of labor." Yet the worker found himself allotted
as a wage for eleven or twelve hours a day a sum which usually
allowed him only to eke out a frugal existence and to prosper
only barring misfortune or unemployment. The great mass of
unskilled labor was paid at the rate of seventy-five cents a day
in 1850, and this wage rose to a dollar and five cents average
by the end of the decade. Immigrants from foreign countries
sometimes found it difficult to find remuneration even at that
rate, and in 1860 they constituted three-fourths of the paupers
of the state. The more exclusive field of skilled labor, though
it paid rather better than this, was closed to many youths by
four and five year periods of apprenticeship. 1
With uncertain periods of employment on works of internal
improvement, with many engaged in seasonal occupations, the
growing cities and towns of Illinois found themselves con-
fronted with a new problem of poverty. Unemployment in a
period of high prices brought the helpless, unorganized work-
ers and their families to dire straits and there were many
such periods. Even the ordinary winter involved a severe
strain upon the workers' finances; the unorganized poor relief
of that day was ill prepared to cope with these demands. The
winter of 1854, with a financial depression following a bad
drought that sent wheat up to $1.40 a bushel retail, compelled
the "friends of the poor" in the cities to recognize the prob-
1 Chicago Democrat, May 17, 1848, April 9, 1849. According to the 1848
report of the commissioners of patents, wages of mechanics and laborers were
$8 to $10 a week in central and southern Illinois and $15 to $20 in the northern
section. Illinois State Register, March 10, 1848. At the same time serving
maids received a dollar a week and, no longer content to possess a single
calico dress, were reputed recklessly extravagant. Ibid., August 18, 1848.
202
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 203
lem and devise alleviative measures. Meanwhile the editor of
the Chicago Democrat acutely analyzed the cause : " Reduction
of the Wages of Labor High Prices High Rents, &c, &c."
In the next two winters there was only the normal problem of
poverty; but 1857, the panic year, brought a general state
of unemployment. In the midst of plenty, with barns and
storehouses full of grains and foodstuffs held back because of
the low prices, twenty thousand workers in Chicago were with-
out the usual means of earning a livelihood and with their
dependents faced actual starvation; the other cities of the state
confronted a similar problem. Though municipal works were
advocated, municipal bakeries and soup-houses suggested, and
the sale of foodstuffs at cost by the city administration was
urged, little effective relief was rendered; and the workers
struggled through the winter as best they could. Unemploy-
ment continued well into the spring. In June there was not
nearly enough work on the streets of Chicago at seventy-five
cents a day for two days a week to supply the demand; it was
therefore decided to reduce the wage to fifty cents and put
one-third more men into the city's service. 2
Reformers who confronted these conditions usually found
the explanation of poverty in the new difficulty of securing
cheap or free land for the potential settler, who was there-
fore driven to the cities to seek a livelihood. Land reform,
accordingly, was the cure-all put forward for the eco-
nomic ills of the day. 3 Protection from exploitation by
ruthless capitalists would come, they held, only when free
I _ homesteads were placed at the disposal of all would-be tillers
of the soil.
Simultaneously with the appearance of a serious problem
of poverty, the newspapers chronicled a great wave of crime
in the larger cities of the state. The old offenses of the fron-
tier were easily separated from these new developments ; horse-
stealing in the rural districts continued to arouse vigilance
2 The tendency was to shift the responsibility for poor relief from the
county to the town or township. Laws of 1851, p. 183-184, 194-195 ; Laws of 1852,
p. 113; Laws of 1853, P- 261-262, 275-277, 464-465; Alton Weekly Courier,
December 7, 1854; Alton Courier, December 12, 29, 1854, January n, 25, 1855;
Belleville Advocate, February 21, 1855; Chicago Weekly Democrat, February
10, 1855; Rockford Register, July 19, 1858.
3 See pages 89-90.
204 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
committees which often dispensed lynch law to the thief as
fearlessly as they applied a coat of tar and feathers to the
violator of the community standard of morality. 4 These were
not the urban crimes, however, the steady increase of which
had been noticed in the cities. Various explanations for such
growth had been given: some held that it was not real but
merely the apparent result of improved facilities for knowing
the evil transactions of society; some attributed it to the moral
laxity that prevailed as a result of the growing inclination
toward extravagance and dissipation; but an occasional critic
soberly commented: "At the commencement of winter, espe-
cially in the large cities, there is the prospect of more suffering
and poverty, and crime is more rife, than at other seasons of
the year. And it is observable, that most of the criminal acts
now-a-days are committed in the cities." 5 In the closing years
of the decade the alarming increase of crime seemed to be
accountable on no other basis.
Even the humble sociological observer of that day was
able to discern some connection between this disorderly atmos-
phere of the cities and the " demon drink." Intemperance
was a prevailing feature of community life. Grogshops and
saloons were licensed as fast as applications were made; Belle-
ville, a city of 4,000, had forty licensed retail liquor establish-
ments with " probably as many more unlicensed." The danger
of such conditions had already been realized in the more set-
tled states of the east; a temperance movement swept over
New England, producing the "Maine law" brand of temper-
ance, a crusade for total legislative prohibition on alcoholic
liquors. Appearing just when the objectivity of the frontier
was yielding to the subjective analysis of more intensive civili-
zation, it is not surprising that the movement now spread to
the states of the Mississippi valley and had a profound sig-
4 Horse-thief detecting societies were still common in certain parts of the
state. See notice of a meeting in 1852 of the Brighton society in Printer's
Scrap Book.
5 Belleville Democrat, December n, 1858. See editorials on the increase
of crime in the Rockford Register, May 16, 1857; Chicago Daily Times, August
28, 1857; Belleville Democrat, January 23, 1858; Chicago Democrat, August 13,
1859; Urbana Clarion, October 29, 1859. In the lists of crime, thefts of food
and clothing were quite common; many were juvenile offenders especially
in the cases of food stealing.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 205-
nificance in Illinois life and politics. In 1849 J onn Hawkins,
the father of the " Washingtonian " temperance movement,
appeared in Chicago; in an address on the necessity of temper-
ance effort in that city, he declared that after having carefully
inspected the situation in the Illinois metropolis he could frankly
state that in all his tours over the United States he had never
seen a city or town which seemed so much like one universal
grogshop as Chicago. A little later considerable interest was
aroused by the temperance lectures of James E. Vinton of
New York, known as the " Mohawk Dutchman." These men
found a fertile field for their evangels and spread their propa-
ganda throughout the state. 6
Up to the year 1847 temperance agitation in Illinois had
been feeble and unpopular. Small temperance groups, chiefly
offshoots of the New England movement, had worked in
obscurity in Chicago, Springfield, Jacksonville, and other
points. In November, 1845, tne Sons of Temperance, a secret
ritualistic organization pledging its members to the practice
of temperance, entered the state. Two years later when a
state organization was formed there were only six divisions
in Illinois; but before another six months 91 units had been
chartered with a membership of 3,000, with new divisions
rapidly forming. Their processions in the regalia of the order
and their public exercises became a feature of all legal holiday
celebrations. It was not long before temperance became " the
order of the day;" a temperance paper, the Illinois Organ,
was established, subsidiary organizations were formed a
"Temple of Honor" for the especially fervent Sons of Tem-
perance, the Cadets of Temperance for the younger genera-
tion; and for zealous sisters local "Ladies Temperance
Unions" and "Daughters of Temperance." In the course
of four years of activity in the state the Sons of Temperance
recruited only four thousand members; in the year of 1849-
1850, however, 6,626 were enrolled, while the number of
divisions rose to over 270. Although this pace could not
6 Belleville Advocate, June 13, 1850; Western Citizen, August 28, 1849.
Chicago had at that time 275 authorized drinking establishments, one for every
sixty inhabitants; see Chicago Democrat clipped in Illinois Journal, July 21,
1849; Alton Telegraph, December 28, 1849; Ottawa Free Trader, October 19,
1850, March 8, 1851; Illinois State Register, October 14, 1852.
206 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
be maintained, steady progress continued in the years that
followed. 7
It is to be remembered that the temperance cause was not
built up into a single organization; various societies carried
on their respective lines of activity. The churches often under-
took independent campaigns against intemperance; the Cath-
olics had their Sons of Temperance order and total abstinence
societies. A good deal of temperance activity was carried on
without formal and permanent organization; mass meeting
and temperance conventions were assembled with remarkable
ease. General state temperance union meetings were held
regularly each year and a national convention at Chicago on
November 18, 1857.
The goal of the Sons of Temperance and similar societies
was too vague for the more aggressive temperance advocates.
Moral suasion, the approved method, did not promise entire
reform and was thus unsatisfactory to those who wanted a
complete purification of society. Many urged, therefore, that
some form of political action ought to be undertaken which
would strike at the root of the evil. The relative desirability
of a high license system, with its " respectable " grog aristoc-
racy working behind cut glass and mahogany cases, and of a
low rate, producing a democratic system of bunghole dispens-
ing "doggeries," was discussed by certain temperance forces,
while others argued for the entire prohibition of liquor selling.
The license system itself was scrutinized and attacked; the
reformers pointed out countless infractions of the license laws
both by the licensed dealers and by their unauthorized com-
petitors. A vigilance committee in Ottawa kept a careful eye
on the grogshops in the hope that it might eventually expel
''Gem of the Prairie, February 19, 1848; Quincy Whig, April 19, 1848;
Illinois Organ, July i, 1848, September 21, 1850. The movement now attracted
favorable attention. " This institution bids fair to become one of the most
efficient engines of social improvement ever devised by man, and all such as
desire the amelioration of the condition of the human race, will not long with-
hold from it their aid and influence," was the commendation of the editor of
the Illinois Slate Register, October 22, 1847. Its political rival, the Journal,
also undertook to point out the advantages of the movement and commended
the rescue work carried on by the Sons of Temperance. Illinois Journal, August
7, 1850. List of the 272 divisions on June i, 1850, Printer's Scrap Book. Illinois
State Register, October 22, November 19, 1847, February n, 1848, August i,
1850; Ottawa Free Trader, May 3, 1851; Chicago Democrat, May 8, 1851;
Beardstovun Gazette, March 31, 1852; Alton Courier, October 29, 1853.
every rumseller from town. 8 The no-license forces finally
gathered strength to carry the elections in Quincy, Rockford,
and Springfield in the spring of 1850 and barely lost in Ottawa.
Many, however, for various reasons desired general state
wide action. A cry arose for the complete banishment of the
liquor dealer from the state. So much strength was displayed
by the temperance forces that the legislature in January, 1851
abolished the existing license law and prohibited the selling
or giving away of spirituous liquors in less quantity than one
quart; this law was expected to pacify temperance advocates,
while the liquor forces were shrewd enough to see the impos-
sibility of enforcement. The law justified the forecast and
became immediately an absolute nullity until its repeal and the
substitution of the license system in February, i853- 9
Disillusioned by this development, the temperance forces
now took up Maine law prohibition, which was being vigorously
agitated throughout the middle west. Hard-headed business
men who had at first eyed it with suspicion as the propaganda
of the traveling tract peddler and the would-be reformer, iden-
tified with all the incipient isms of the day, now came to look
upon it as a force that might work incalculable good. As the
Maine law came to be regarded as a preventive scheme more
desirable than legislative interference in the field of morals
and religion, the temperance movement underwent rapid recon-
struction. Its most aggressive expression was now found in
a newly created system of Maine law alliances with township
and county divisions and an active state organization. By the
beginning of 1854 forecasts were made that two-thirds of the
voters of the state would be members of the different alliances
and the enactment of the Maine law was regarded as a settled
fact. 10
A more careful analysis revealed the fact that the strength
of this movement lay in the northern counties in the old New
England districts; neither Egypt where, according to its
8 Ottawa Free Trader, June 8, 1850.
9 Laws of 1851, p. 18-19; Laws of 1853, p. 91-92, 127; Belleville Advocate,
January 30, 1851; Illinois Organ, February i, 1851; Western Citizen, February
xi, 1851.
10 Joliet Signal, March 9, 1852; Alton Courier, September 16, 1853; Peru
Daily Chronicle, February 14, 1854.
spokesman, " the use of intoxicating drinks seems more natu-
ral than the use of water," ll nor the democratic strongholds
in the north were effectively organized for the cause. Peti-
tions, however, poured into the legislature from all sides
requesting prohibition legislation. When a special committee
in February, 1853, reported adversely upon a petition with
twenty-six thousand signatures which had been referred to it,
only greater activity was aroused among the Maine law forces.
When in the session of 1854 the general assembly again
ignored the demand that the Maine law question be submitted
to the people, the temperance forces entered the field of state
politics with a grim determination. Previous to this the most
significant political action of the temperance forces was the
canvass made by them in Chicago in the municipal election of
1852. Placing a city ticket in the field, they conducted an active
canvass and ran second in the field of four mayoralty candi-
dates, in spite of the fact that their original candidate for
mayor was induced to leave the field. The contest was again
attempted in 1854 with even greater success. 12
Up to this time the great political stumblingblock for the
temperance forces had been the democratic party. The Spring-
field machine was strongly opposed to the temperance propa-
ganda and inclined to favor making it a party issue, inasmuch
as nearly every whig paper in the state was out for temper-
ance ; 13 the democratic party had thereby acquired the nick-
name of "whisky party." There were democrats, however,
who saw the evil consequences of the dictation that came from
Springfield; they saw that the temperance issue had already
counted subtly against them in county, legislative, and even
congressional elections; this rebellious spirit helped to feed
the anti-Nebraska revolt of 1854. In several districts, where
the democratic party split over the temperance issue, inde-
pendent temperance democratic candidates were placed in the
field.
11 Cairo Weekly Times and Delta, February 3, 1858.
12 Aurora Guardian, January 19, February 23, 1853. The Illinois Central
refused to transport spirituous liquors over any part of its seven hundred miles
of railroad. Belleville Advocate, August 17, 1853; Chicago Democrat, February
9 to March 3, 1852; Free West, February 9, March 9, 1854.
13 Alton Courier, November 18, 1853.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 209
Temperance agitation at this time found an ally in the
antislavery extension propaganda the enemy of slavery the
natural foe of rum. Some even declared that the Nebraska
question was of no greater importance than that of the Maine
law; in the northern section, temperance conventions nomi-
nated the congressional and legislative candidates put forward
by the new republican movement. 14
The anti-Nebraska victory of 1854 was, therefore, more
than an anti-Nebraska victory, it was a reform triumph, a
temperance victory. The new legislature was a strong anti-
Nebraska temperance body, anxious to secure the enactment
of the Maine law. The opponents of prohibition hoping to
save themselves from certain defeat immediately suggested
that any legislation ought to be submitted to the people for
ratification. Finally, however, the temperance advocates were
able to push to enactment a somewhat ambiguous measure for
total prohibition; it provided for a popular referendum, at a
special election on the first Monday in June, i855. 15
Thereupon an exciting three months' contest began between
the Maine law and anti-prohibition forces. Both sides put
their full strength into the field. Temperance workers stumped
the state, copies of their organs were strewn broadcast, their
organizations conducted a systematic campaign with the sup-
port of a majority of the regular newspapers. But the oppo-
sition revealed strength that was scarcely in accordance with
calculations. They used to advantage both the fact that the
Maine law had not been successful in the New England states
that had given it a trial and that real temperance did not
involve prohibition. Morality on compulsion was decried and
the revolutionary interference with personal liberty that the
law involved, while the farmer was reminded that the law
would have a tendency to destroy the market and lower the
price of corn. These arguments were used with telling effect
in Egypt, in the German stronghold around Belleville, and
14 The Free West, the antislavery organ, was one of the strongest tem-
perance journals in the state. Aurora Guardian, September 14, October 19,
1854; Canton Weekly Register, October n, 1854; Free West, October 5, 1854.
15 Alton Courier, November 20, 23, 1854. Thomas J. Turner, the new
speaker, was a " fiery liquor prohibitionist " as well as an " uncompromising
abolitionist." St. Clair Tribune, January 13, 1855; Laws of 1855, p. 3-30.
210 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
among the Germans and Irish of Chicago, where some serious
riots took place on April 21 and 22, 1855. Anti-prohibitionist
papers were started in Chicago and Belleville, and the liquor
dealers of Chicago subscribed a large fund with which to fight
ratification. As a result the returns of the heaviest vote ever
cast in the state shattered the hopes of the overconfident tem-
perance forces. The northern counties lived up to expectations,
but their "light" was smothered in what was called by them
the "moral and intellectual darkness" of southern Illinois. 16
This defeat, followed by the general shift of interest to the
slavery controversy, took the wind out of the sails of the state
wide temperance movement. Local eddies, however, made
possible the adoption of prohibition ordinances in various towns
and cities. Some victories had already been won in this field.
Jacksonville, always a strong temperance center, passed a pro-
hibition ordinance which was tested in the courts and resulted
in a decision by the state supreme court in favor of local option
without legislative authorization. Springfield had already en-
acted a prohibition ordinance in 1854; Ottawa, Rockford,
Aurora, Joliet, Canton, Macomb, Princeton, and other cities
also gave it a trial. All Winnebago county became dry terri-
tory. 17 But the general unwillingness to assume responsibility
for law enforcement permitted first a stealthy evasion of these
ordinances and later complete and open free trade in every-
thing intoxicating with the result that public opinion fell back
upon the old license system, under which the old evils continued
unabated. Chicago, with some eight hundred liquor dealers
organized to defend the traffic, never got any farther than a
strict license ordinance. Gradually by the end of the decade,
a reaction set in which relegated the cause of temperance into
the dim background. Temperance societies were no longer
16 Koerner, Memoirs, 1:622-623; Illinois Journal, April 22, 26, 1855; Aurora
Beacon, April 26, 1855; Aurora Guardian, June 14, 1855. The majority against
prohibition was 14,447, Illinois election statistics manuscripts ; cf. Ottawa Weekly
Republican, July 7, 1855. The banner county was Winnebago with a vote of
2,163 to 363 for prohibition. The Germans of Chicago held a procession and
meeting in celebration of the defeat of the liquor law. Chicago Weekly Demo-
crat, July 7, 1855.
17 Aurora Guardian, May 4, 1854; Rockford Register, April 9, 1859. Even
villages in southern Illinois, including Carlinville, Jonesboro, Carbondale, and
Metropolis, caught the contagion and experimented with prohibition. See Central
Illinois Gazette, June 22, 1859; Quincy Whig, July 17, 1854.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 211
heard of; even the "Sons" appeared to have left the field.
The churches, formerly silent partners in. the temperance move-
ment, found themselves unable to revive interest in the lost
cause. 18
Throughout the struggle by the temperance forces for
effective legal action, the more fanatical agitators now and
again had recourse to mob action. Many a cask of liquor was
absorbed by the thirsty soil when a storehouse was quietly
entered and holes were bored into the containers to drain them
of their contents. In other instances the work was done boldly
and openly; "liquor riots" repeatedly took place in which
bands of leading citizens attacked the hated groggeries, de-
stroyed the liquor found on the premises, and threatened the
proprietors with personal violence if they did not choose a
more honorable calling. Inasmuch as there was a disposition
to deplore such fanaticism, however, this work was often left
for enraged feminine victims of the liquor traffic. Many an
unnamed Carrie Nation came forward to lead her band of
followers in a destructive assault upon the offending whisky
shops; armed with hatchets, rolling pins, broomsticks, kitchen
knives, and fire shovels, they routed the enemy, leaving empty
barrels and broken glasses and decanters to decorate the
streets. 19 The temperance forces generally extended their
approval to such raids regardless of whether havoc was done
to the property of licensed dealers or to illicit violators of
prohibitory ordinances. This aggressive work of the women
attracted more attention than their active and valuable services
in the regularly organized temperance movement.
Up to this time the women's rights movement had found
its strength largely in the east; Illinois as a western state had
been somewhat slow to respond. Now, with the passing of the
18 Father McGorrisk, the Catholic priest at Ottawa, was a prohibitionist
until he made an investigation and found that the liquor sales increased con-
siderably and the establishments increased from twenty to thirty licensed shops
in 1855 to 143 illicit doggeries in 1857. Ottawa Free Trader, June 6, 1857. See
also Ottawa Weekly Republican, July 26, 1856, June 13, 1857; Presbytery
Reporter, 4: 89.
19 Peru Daily Chronicle, April 27, 28, 1854. These nineteenth century
amazons did effective work at one time or other in Milford, Lincoln, Farming-
ton, Canton, Piano, Tonica, Towanda, Liberty, and Winnebago. Quincy Whig,
March 27, 1854; Canton Weekly Register, March 20, 1856; Illinois State Journal,
March 25, 1856; Urbana Union, March 27, 1856; Joliet Signal, June 8, 1858.
212 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
frontier, there was an awakening. Men who represented other
radical movements of the day had been the first to find courage
to present this new propaganda before the public; the versatile
H. Van Amringe of Chicago pleaded for woman's rights and
listed the cause with land reform and abolition in his lecture
repertoire. Next women propagandists took the stage, though
at first limiting themselves to discourses to the members of
their sex on anatomy and physiology. In 1853, however, Miss
Olive Starr Wait, a native of Madison county, and niece of
William S. Wait, the Illinois reformer, attracted widespread
attention by her lectures on " Women's Rights " in southwestern
Illinois. Two years later her lecture route included the state
capital. Miss Wait had a happy faculty of presenting her
subject in a manner which offended few and attracted many.
" For chaste elocution, happy illustration, beauty of diction and
depth of pathos, these lectures have been but seldom equaled,"
wrote a discriminating patron. 20 At the end of 1853 Lucy
Stone visited Chicago and then started on a tour of the state
on a feminist mission. In the discussion that followed, the
removal of legal restrictions on women was advocated and
even found supporters in the legislative halls at Spring-
field. 21
There was a good deal of confusion as to just what the
women's rights movement covered. Few advocated the be-
stowal of the franchise, and no one included political equality
in the matter of officeholding. Admitting a distinct sphere for
womankind, the women's rights forces insisted upon the injus-
tice of contemporary legal discriminations as to property-
holding, and in addition claimed those rights, the denial of
which would defraud woman's very nature. Confined to the
narrow training of the contemporary female seminary or col-
lege, shut out of the high schools and colleges, many women
labored to secure for their sex equality in education. " Let
women be educated," urged one champion, "Tis her right, not
the fashionable education of the boarding school, an education
too often, of the head, at the expense of the heart! There
20 N. M. McCurdy to Joseph Gillespie, December 15, 1855, Gillespie manu-
scripts. Miss Wait later became the wife of Honorable Jehu Baker.
21 Illinois Journal, January 24, 1853; Chicago Weekly Democrat, September
17, 1853.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 213
are five kinds of education which every woman has a right to:
intellectual, moral, social, physical, and industrial." 22
Such advocacy began to have its effect; although Illinois
Baptists, like the Reverend R. F. Ellis of Alton, were scandal-
ized at the news that Miss Antoinette L. Brown had been
ordained as Congregationalist pastor of South Butler, New
York, "in a Baptist house." Yet within five years a Mrs.
Hubbard, one of the earliest women preachers in Illinois, was
preaching to a crowded house of "hardshell" Baptists in a
small meeting house in Madison county. 23
One off-shoot of the women's rights agitation was the
attempt to establish a more sensible costume for women, since
it was the feeling of many that woman's inequality grew out
of the evils of dress which by ancient custom make " our women
feeble when they might be strong," " stooping when they might
be straight," and "helpless when they might be efficient."
Feminine dress would not permit the vigorous physical exer-
cise which develops superior intellects, and man, thus deprived
of the society of women in many of his avocations and diver-
sions, regarded her as his inferior. This was the argument of
the dress reformers, whose adherents demonstrated their seri-
ousness in 1851 and again in 1858, when wearers of the
bloomer costume, designed by Mrs. Bloomer at New York,
made their appearance on the streets of various Illinois cities.
For the "Long dangling street sweeper" which had consti-
tuted the female dress, there was substituted an abbreviated
" skirt," reaching to the " courtesy benders." Bloomer parties
were held to keep up the courage of the unterrified who braved
the gaze of the curious and the sharp tongues of the town
gossips. Many women, safe from the public gaze, enjoyed the
convenience which the costume afforded for the performance
of housework. 24 Soon, however, the number of conversions
22 Alton Courier, January 27, 1854.
23 In May, 1859, the first class graduated in the women's department of
Sloan's Central Commercial College at Chicago, " the first class of ladies who
have received a thorough commercial education in the West, if not in the
United States," Chicago Press and Tribune, May 19, 1859. Alton Courier,
October 13, 1853; Stahl, "Early Women Preachers in Illinois," Illinois State
Historical Society, Journal, 9:484-485.
24 See resolutions of dress reform meeting at Aurora, Aurora Beacon, April
8, 1858.
ai4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
declined; and the traditions of centuries triumphed over the
would-be reformers.
With the passing of the frontier atmosphere, the church
struggled to hold its monopoly of the sabbath against forces of
progress which made it difficult to cease worldly affairs on the
seventh day and against a popular tendency toward kinds of
relaxation that could not adjust themselves to a puritanical sab-
bath observance. Many stores and shops kept open doors
on Sunday and seemed to take special pains to make as large
a display as possible. 25 Sunday railroads, newspapers, and
mail service had their beginning. Certain communities took
on a gala atmosphere on Sundays; militia companies in uniform
paraded to music while companies of young folk spent the day
in merrymaking and the patrons of the liquor shops defied all
attempts at Sunday closing.
All this offended the upholders of a sturdy backwoods
puritanism. An organized movement for sabbath observance
had existed in the state for several years; a Southwestern Illi-
nois Sabbath Convention was organized in 1846 and a similar
organization existed in the northern part of the state. In May,
1854, a sabbath convention for the entire northwest met in
Chicago. These forces had secured the enactment of a state
law for sabbath observance as well as many city ordinances
prohibiting the sale of liquor on Sunday. They worked with
zeal to stay the ever-alarming increase of sabbath desecration
in all directions, but especially did they challenge the new
encroachments of commercial enterprise. Attention was di-
rected to the alarming desecration threatened by Sunday trains;
a sabbath convention met at Chicago in May, 1854, and
denounced this danger as more appalling than from any other
source. 26 Objection was even made to the running of the
Chicago horse railway or omnibus lines. Nevertheless, it
became more and more evident that on this score the Sunday
25 Rock River Democrat, July 5, 1853.
26 " If business monopolies set the example, the effect of that example
will be to demoralize the country, and destroy the influence of the Bible and its
ordinances," declared the editor of the Alton Courier who was willing to place
the ban on "telling the news, though from the latter good may indirectly result,"
Alton Courier, May 20, 1854; Free West, May 25, 1854. Many editors of polit-
ical journals took the same stand; also Ottawa Free Trader, June 18, 1853.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 215
observance movement was an abstraction that could not stay
the hands of the clock of time.
The tendency toward democratic Sunday amusement gained
headway in the towns and cities. This was especially true of
the German element which in the summer months repaired to
nearby picnic grounds or Sunday gardens and spent the day
in merrymaking. To the Germans of Chicago, who associated
with the sabbath not only the idea of religious worship but
also the festive holiday atmosphere, the gayety of their Sunday
gardens at Cottage Grove or of the Holstein picnic grounds
three miles out on the Milwaukee road seemed an inalienable
right. On the same principle the Belleville Germans assumed
certain privileges in the parades of their military company and
of their "gymnastic infidel company" that annoyed their fel-
low-citizens. 27 The Northwestern Sabbath Convention of
1854 therefore declared that "the vast influx of immigrants
joining us from foreign and despotic countries, who have
learned in their native land to hate the established religion and
the Sabbath law as part of it, calls on us for special prayer
and labor in behalf of this portion of our population, to
reclaim them from this fatal error." 28 Such reclamation,
however, made little progress; the socially-minded westerner,
indeed, found an appeal in this new gospel of the joy of life
that could not be offset by his own evangels. When, therefore,
the German's right to his peculiar form of Sunday observance
was threatened, sturdy champions among the native elements
of the population came to his aid.
All the efforts of the restrictionists, therefore, seemed to
end in failure. With the city clergy clamoring for the rigid
enforcement of state laws and local ordinances, 29 conditions in
Chicago were described as follows : " Here in Chicago, we have
fifty-six churches open on Sunday, during the forenoon and
evening, but at the same time, there are no less than eighty
ball rooms, in each of which a band plays from morning till
^Chicago Daily Times, September 6, 1857; Chicago Press and Tribune,
July 14, 1859. Protests were sent to Governor French by William H. Under-
wood and others under date of September 20, 1851, July 8, 1852, French manu-
scripts.
28 Alton Courier, May 23, 1854.
89 Chicago Press and Tribune, July 16, 1859.
216 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
midnight, and waltzing goes on without intermission. In addi-
tion to these festivities we have two theaters, each with its
performers in tights and very short garments, rivaling Elsler
in their graceful evolutions. Saloons have their front doors
closed by proclamation, but do a thriving business through side
entrances." 30
Health conditions in this period reflected the survival of
frontier optimism and neglect. Although the traditional ague
and fever did not long trouble the pioneer, yet the new con-
ditions of the more thickly settled towns and cities bred disease
which spread in epidemics through the community. With back
yards, alleys, and streets filled with filth and offal and giving
forth a fetid odor, with the environs of the public buildings
and stores especially offensive, with market houses strewn with
" sheep feet, pieces of decayed meat and vegetables," immunity
from disease could scarcely have been expected. Impure and
contaminated water supply was the rule, while the children of
Chicago and other cities were given the milk from cows " fed
on whisky slops with their bodies covered with sores and tails
all eat off." 31 Smallpox was a dread visitor liable to appear
anywhere during the winter months; vaccination was possible
only to a limited degree and was scarcely popular. Hydro-
phobia was the natural consequence of the packs of dogs that
ran at large in the streets for the city dweller of that day
was not able to abandon in urban life the former guardian
of the isolated farmhouse and the assistant of the shepherd.
But the pestilence which left behind the widest path of
destruction was the cholera, the product of the filth that was
accepted as a matter of course in the frontier settlement. A
year of special calamity was 1848 ; cholera, making its appear-
ance in the early spring, came to prevail all over the country
and in Illinois decimated the population of many a town and
village. Chicago, Springfield, and some of the larger cities
under the lead of the local health authorities had taken simple
precautions which greatly reduced the fatalities. In the crowded
30 Chicago Daily Times, clipped in Mound City Emporium, November 12,
1857; cf. Chicago Democrat, May 13, 1858.
31 Alton Weekly Courier, July 27, 1854. Editorial entitled "Why So Many
Children Die in Chicago," Chicago Weekly Democrat, June 4, 1859. Nine out of
every ten quarts of the milk drank in Chicago came from this source.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 217
portions of the smaller communities the victims were especially
numerous. The mayor of Springfield appointed June 28 as a
day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer in view of the probable
advent of cholera in that city; by July death was so busy in
their midst that a state of panic existed among the people of
the city. West Belleville lost over fifty out of a population
of 350. Where the disease raged at its worst a majority of
the population left for the country, and most of the stores were
closed, usually all the groceries. Almost everyone felt or
affected to feel the unusual depression and other premonitory
symptoms of the plague. 32 The streets were empty except for
the doctors rushing from victim to victim and the coffin-makers
and undertakers, following closely on their heels ready to carry
the corpses to the cemeteries. Huge piles of wood were lighted
to purify the atmosphere and the smoke hung low on the heavy
oppressive air of the prairie midsummer. It was a never to
be forgotten year for those who survived the long strain.
In the autumn the dread disease disappeared. Winter
seemed to clear the atmosphere; and much of the old careless-
ness in sanitary matters returned, especially where the losses
had not been heavy. As a result Chicago, Galena, and a few
centers had serious visitations in the summer of 1850 with
heavy mortalities. In 1851 the insidious disease reached into
the interior towns of the state, many of which had been pre-
viously immune. 33 It presently subsided, however, and in later
years reappeared only in isolated cases.
Medical service in the state improved steadily during these
years. At the beginning of the decade Rush Medical College
at Chicago with a full corps of instructors was turning out new
physicians every year; Illinois College at Jacksonville for a
brief period attempted medical education with a full medical
faculty. In 1855 a Chicago homeopathic school, the Hahne-
man Medical College, was given a charter; and arrangements
were made to open in October, 1860. At the same time Lind
University at Lake Forest was organizing a medical depart-
32 Western Citizen, July 31, 1849; Koerner, Memoirs, 1:543-544.
33 Western Citizen, July 30, August 6, 13, 20, 27, 1850; Chicago Daily
Journal, August 23, September 3, 1850. Galena had fifty to sixty deaths in
four days; the total of deaths by cholera in Chicago was 441. S. Sutherland
to French, August 19, 1851, French manuscripts.
2i8 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ment at Chicago. At a meeting in Springfield a State Medical
Society was organized in June, 1850. There was a fine spirit
of public service in the profession which usually worked inces-
santly largely on a credit basis. Chicago had a large city hos-
pital under joint allopathic and homeopathic management.
Meantime Dr. J. D. Freeman of Jerseyville had undertaken to
propagate an eclectic movement throughout the state with an
organ, the Eclectic Advertiser, " devoted to medical reform
and foreign and domestic news" in which he vigorously at-
tacked the " shocking barbarity " of old school medical practice.
The meeting of the Western Dental Convention at Quincy in
1858 also testified to the steady progress of the state away
from pioneer conditions. 34
Out of this vast ferment, in which the bacilli forming
reactions of the frontier were furnishing the forces from which
a twentieth century culture might develop, the abolition move-
ment stood out most uncompromisingly. A sturdy band of
idealists conducted their propaganda in utter disregard of the
scorn and hostility of those who upheld the traditions of con-
servatism and respectability. Ichabod Codding, Zebina East-
man, Philo Carpenter and Charles V. Dyer of Chicago, C. W.
Hunter of Alton, Shubal York of Edgar county, A. M. Good-
ing of La Salle county, and President Jonathan Blanchard of
Knox College were a few of the brave spirits who with a trans-
planted New England idealism cooperated with Owen Lovejoy
of Bureau county in maintaining the traditions of the movement
of the thirties. Like Garrison and his followers they were
thorough radicals, hospitable to every reform that came their
way. They were enthusiastic believers in the brotherhood of
man: they were champions of world peace and conscientious
objectors to all war, they were staunch defenders of the rights
of labor, they were advocates of land reform, of free soil as
a check upon capitalists and monopolists, they were supporters
of women's rights, and they took a leading part in the propa-
ganda for educational reform. 35
The popular free soil movement of 1848 tended to absorb
34 Illinois Journal, June 5, 1850; Dr. E. N. Banks to French, July 2, 1851,
French manuscripts; Chicago Press and Tribune, July 13, 1858.
35 See their organs, Gem of the Prairie, Western Citizen, etc.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 219
and obscure the activities of these liberty party men and fur-
ther to discredit those abolitionists who held aloof, as "bitter-
enders." Dyer, running as the liberty party candidate for gov-
ernor in 1 848, secured only 4,893 votes while Van Buren polled
15,702. When the free soil movement collapsed in 1850,
however, the abolitionists saw their opportunity to reorganize;
taking advantage of the general hostility to the fugitive slave
law, they framed the protestations of the various churches
against that enactment on the basis of the fundamental sinful-
ness of slaveholding; a preliminary meeting at Chicago on
December 9, 1850, opened the way for the organization of the
Illinois State Antislavery Society at a convention at Granville
on January 8 and 9, i85i. 36 The new movement was launched
under favorable auspices; its sponsors promulgated an elabo-
rate constitution and a declaration of principles which asserted
that slavery was " a heinous crime against the laws of God
and man " and as such should be " immediately repented of and
abolished/' Soon, however, the conservative reaction under
the magic spell of the "compromise" brought about the col-
lapse of the movement in so far as making a successful popular
appeal was concerned. In the election of 1852 they found
themselves compelled to make a common cause with the free
soil remnants but polled slightly less than 10,000 votes. When
the Kansas-Nebraska act revived the slavery agitation in 1854,
the abolitionists were so discredited that the anti-Nebraska
forces in Illinois refused to follow their lead for a new repub-
lican party, and only gradually did they work their way into
positions of importance in the party that raised Lincoln to the
presidency. 37
In spite of the popular odium which prevented abolitionists
from securing political control, they did wield an indirect influ-
ence upon the old parties by compelling them in northern
Illinois districts to take more advanced antislavery ground.
On account of the abolition leaven, too, the conservatives were
never able to undermine the influence which their more liberal
colleagues derived from this source. Indeed such shrewd poli-
ticians as John Wentworth, Jesse O. Norton, E. B. Washburne,
36 Western Citizen, December 17, 24, 1850, January 21, 1851.
37 Eastman, History of the Anti-Slavery Agitation in Illinois,
220 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
and others, who led boldly for freedom when the public mind
was favorable but insisted on a strict party regularity until
they definitely abandoned the old parties for the republican
organization, openly advocated many propositions which were
usually looked upon as the peculiar monopoly of the uncom-
promising abolitionists. 38
With the growing importance of the slavery issue and
with the serious moral issue raised by the abolition forces, the
religious organizations furnished one of the most effective
fields for abolition propaganda. As the national organizations
had wrestled with this question and found it the rock upon
which they had split into northern and southern wings, so within
the state the fight was taken up by contending factions in almost
every denomination. The clergy in general came to be divided
into an antislavery camp and into a party that abhorred the
menace of abolitionism.
Episcopalians believing that the conservative spirit of their
church was one of the great bonds that held together the union,
steered a safe noncommittal course between the Scylla of
slavery and the Charybdis of abolition. The Methodist church
in Illinois prided itself on its solemn and earnest protest against
the evil of slavery and pointed to its vigorous anti-fugitive slave
law resolutions; nevertheless, at the same time it acquiesced
in the sanction of the institution in the slaveholding states to
such an extent that zealous antislavery members from the
northern part of the state demanded a separation of the church
" from its criminal connection with slavery." 30 Most Congre-
gational, Baptist, and Unitarian churches were controlled by
elements unequivocally committed to abhorrence of the institu-
tion of slavery; they even formally adopted "higher law"
ground in their denunciation of the fugitive slave law. The
Western Unitarian Conference at Alton in May, 1857, almost
unanimously adopted a strong antislavery report following
the secession of the protesting St. Louis delegation. 40
The old school Presbyterians continued along the lines of
38 Eastman, History of the Anti-Slavery Agitation in Illinois.
39 Illinois Journal, August i, 2, 1855; Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1860.
40 Western Citizen, November 5, 12, December 3, 1850; Free West, May 25,
1854; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, May 21, 1857.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 221
their traditional conservatism and refused to give consideration
to any form of the slavery question. Within the new school
group there were many who sought to proclaim the wickedness
of slaveholding and, in view of the vacillating policy of the
general assembly, to effect a general withdrawal or separation
from that body. A free Presbyterian organization with a con-
stitution declaring slavery a sin against God, had been formed
in 1847 out f seceders from both the old and new school
bodies; to it were attracted many earnest antislavery men in
Illinois whose convictions of duty threw them out of sympathy
with the religious groups to which they belonged. Two free
Presbyterian churches existed in Illinois in 1851, at Paris and
Bernadotte. 41
Most Illinois new school Presbyterians deplored the work-
ings of the whole system of slavery as it existed in this country;
they were divided, however, on the proposition to refuse the
hand of the fellowship to the slaveholder in order "to free
the Presbyterian church from all participation and communion
with slaveholding." 42 Conservatives within the group even
suppressed in their official publication antislavery resolutions
agreed upon as a result of the persistence of the radical anti-
slavery members. This issue led the synod of Illinois in 1849
to consider the expediency of withdrawing from the general
assembly. The presbytery of Ottawa decided not to send
commissioners until an unequivocal non-fellowship declaration
was made. The presbytery of Illinois in session at Pisgah
September 20, 1856, petitioned the general assembly to pro-
claim slaveholding " as prima facie evidence of unfitness for
church membership," and several other presbyteries took the
same stand in the following year. 43 The abolition group in
the Third Presbyterian church in Chicago precipitated this
issue in the spring of 1851 and carried a resolution declar-
ing that as long as the unsatisfactory policy of the general
assembly on this issue continued, the church would " stand
aloof from all meetings of Presbytery, Synod, and Assembly
41 Western Citizen, December 17, 1850, January 28, 1851.
42 Ibid., November 13, 1849.
43 Reverend Lemuel Foster protested such suppression by the Alton pres-
bytery in his little paper, The Truth Seeker, Alton, July, 1848; Western Citizen,
January 8, 1850; Presbytery Reporter, 3:356, 504; 4:28.
222 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
and thus .... free and relieve itself of all responsibil-
ity." The pastor, a strong antislavery man but a stauncher Pres-
byterian, appealed to the presbytery which declared that the
members who voted for the resolutions had disqualified them-
selves to act as members of the Presbyterian church and thus
expelled a majority of the members of the church. The expelled
members thereupon arranged to organize themselves into a Con-
gregational church, the first to be organized in Chicago. 44
An important figure in these church controversies over
slavery was President Jonathan Blanchard of Knox College;
convinced that "the heart of action in the Church" was the
missions, he declared that from them " the foul spirit of Slavery
must be dislodged before it will be cast out of the Church." 45
Accordingly, beginning in 1847 he had led a fight at the annual
meetings of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions in favor of refusing to receive slaveholders into the
mission churches. This fight he kept up until hope was aban-
doned that the American board would relinquish its partnership
with slaveholders. Then the Illinois Wesleyan Missionary
conference commended the uncompromising opposition to
slavery of the American Missionary Association and urged
affiliation with it instead of the formation of rival missionary
societies among antislavery Christians. President Blanchard
showed, however, that the American Missionary Society and
similar denominational organizations permitted the member-
ship of slaveholders; antislavery Baptists even felt compelled
to organize the American Baptist Free Mission Society. In
July, 1852, therefore, a group of uncompromising opponents
of slaveholding fellowship met at Chicago and formed the
Free Mission Society for the Northwest. For the same reason
the Western Tract Convention was organized in 1859 out of
antislavery seceders from the conservative American Tract
Society. 46
This struggle tended to break down the denominational
barriers that separated the Christian antislavery forces. With
44 Western Citizen, February n, May 6, 20, 1851.
45 Ibid., March 18, 1851; see also issues of August 21, 1849, July 29, 1851.
46 Ibid., March 25, June 24, September 2, 1851, June i, July 20, 1852,
Chicago Democrat, October 19, 1859.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 223
the prevailing " adoption of the doctrine of expediency as a
substitute for the law of Christ," 47 churchmen could not but
feel at times that the slavery issue was of more importance
than sectarianism. A state convention to consider the union
of the Illinois Congregationalist associations and new school
presbyteries was called in 1850 with the approval of Dr.
Blanchard and a number of prominent clergymen, including the
Reverend Flavel Bascom, pastor of the First Presbyterian
church of Chicago, and L. H. Loss of the Third church of
that city. But this movement, intended to " deliver those of
us who are Presbyterians from our ecclesiastical connection
with slaveholders, through the General Assembly, and enable
us to withdraw Christian fellowship from them without incur-
ring the charge of violating ecclesiastical constitution by so
doing," 48 brought results.
Non-sectarian energy was in the end largely absorbed in the
Christian Antislavery Convention which held a national meet-
ing at Cincinnati in April, 1850. A Chicago meeting in prep-
aration for the convention drew considerable support from
prominent clergymen and laymen, and a large delegation was
sent to Cincinnati. A Christian Antislavery Convention for
northern Illinois met at Ottawa in May, with an adjourned
session in September, to effect a permanent organization of all
Illinois Christians who believed in non-fellowship as the only
proper Christian position to assume toward slaveholders. The
first regular semiannual meeting was held at Granville, Putnam
county, in January, 1851. Dr. Blanchard and other Illinoisians
on the general committee appointed by the Cincinnati conven-
tion arranged for the next interstate meeting at Chicago, July
3-5, 1851. Blanchard was chosen to preside over an enthu-
47 Western Citizen, January 22, 1850. There were also direct apolo-
gists for slavery in the religious groups. C. H. McCormick, the reaper manu-
facturer, tried to counteract the antislavery tendencies in Chicago Presby-
terianism. Rockford Register, October 3, 1857. The Chicago Prairie Herald,
established in 1846 by J. B. Walker, a professed abolitionist, was taken over in
1851 by a new editor who published articles to show that slaveholding of the
worst description was practiced by members of the first Christian churches and
that neither Christ nor his apostles denounced it. As a result many of the
subscribers of the Prairie Herald shifted their support to the Christian Era,
edited by Reverend Epaphras Goodman. Western Citizen, March 18, August
12, 26, 1851.
4 * Ibid., January 21, 1851; Moses and Kirkland, History of Chicago, 2:
332-333.
224 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
siastic session of 250 delegates which the regular papers passed
over as a meeting of fanatics and enemies of the country.
The Illinois delegation consisted of 130 persons, of whom 60
were Congregationalists, 29 Baptists, and the rest scattered
between a half dozen denominations. The only Chicago clergy-
man who actively participated in this meeting was Reverend
A. M. Stewart of the Scotch Presbyterian church. A western
branch of a similar organization known as the League of
Universal Brotherhood was founded in Illinois and during its
brief existence seemed to find favor with the Methodists of
the state. 49
The Christian Antislavery Convention disappeared from
existence during the conservative reaction after 1851; but in
October, 1859, it was revived at a general meeting in Chicago
as the Northwestern Christian Antislavery Convention. Again
Blanchard was a leading figure, calling the convention to order
and explaining his support of the republican cause as nearer the
truth than any other. By this time the activities of antislavery
leaders were no longer unpopular, and the convention was
regarded with favor by the spokesman of the growing
republican party.
When the voice of protest came from the pulpit at the
passage of the fugitive slave law and of the Nebraska bill,
the democratic press and politicians began to deplore the
tendency of the clergy to leave their sacred calling and enter
into political strife. " When ministers enter the arena of pol-
itics, and associate themselves with the corrupt and lying
hypocrites who lead the black republican party, and utter sedi-
tious harangues from the pulpit, they are no longer entitled
to that respect which their sacred calling commands," declared
the Joliet Signal, when four of the local clergy participated in
a republican ratification meeting as vice presidents. Such a
challenge did not, however, reduce the zeal of the antislavery
clergymen for the republican cause. Many a radical abandoned
altogether his aversion to mingling in politics. While the
Covenanters of Coulterville were unable to enter politics or to
49 Western Citizen, February 5, April 2, May 7, August 13, 20, 1850, March
18, June 17, July 8, 15, 29, December 30, 1851; Ottawa Free Trader, June i,
15, 1850.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 225
do more than lend their moral support to the cause of freedom,
the Shakers of Lebanon held that when freedom was at stake,
it became a duty to let their votes be given in its defense. 50
It was thus that many a black-frocked emissary of freedom
found courage to spread the gospel of republicanism even to
the remotest corners of Egypt.
Illinois of 1850 had a Negro population of 5,436, a perse-
cuted group which increased to 7,628 by 1860. This increase
was in large part the normal expansion of a fairly prolific race.
Although the border slave states had a large free Negro popu-
lation which they would gladly have seen transferred to Illinois,
the state was after 1853 legally closed against Negro immigra-
tion, whether free or slave. Although no additions were made
to the " black laws " of the state in the way of imposing further
disabilities upon the Negro population, yet in the constitutional
convention of 1847 there had been adopted after a struggle
a provision which instructed the legislature to pass laws pro-
hibiting the immigration of colored persons. This section
was separately submitted to the people for ratification and was
adopted by a vote of 50,261 to 21,297, the opposition coming
chiefly from the northern counties. The state legislature did
not act, however, until the session of 1853 when a drastic act
was passed which provided for a heavy fine for every Negro
bond or free who entered the state; in default of payment the
Negro was to be sold at public auction to the person bidding
the shortest period of service in return for the payment of the
fine. The antislavery forces in the legislature were outnum-
bered nearly two to one and were impotent to do more than
amend the bill to provide for jury trial. 51
On the merits of this measure which the New Orleans
Bee declared " an act of special and savage ruthlessness,"
public opinion in Illinois was divided. In spite of its defense
by the Register, the central democratic organ, as just and neces-
sary for the state to protect itself against the pauper, vagrant,
and vagabond blacks who for twenty years had overrun the
50 Joliet Signal, April 4, 1854, June 17, 1856; Cairo City Times, October
24, 1855; Rushville Times, September 5, 1856; Illinois State Register, January
7, 1857; William Edgar to Trumbull, January 27, 1857, Trumbull manuscripts;
Illinois State Journal, October 13, 1856.
61 Public Laws of 1853, p. 57-60.
226 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
southern part of the state, many democrats vigorously joined
the whig press in assailing the law. The Ottawa Free Trader,
claiming that it would establish a peon system more heartless
and cruel than southern slavery, declared: "We should like
to see the man that would mount the auctioneer's block in this
town and sell a freeman to the highest bidder, and we should
like to see the bidder." Less than a half dozen journals openly
and unequivocally indorsed the law. Asked the Jonesboro
Gazette, a democratic sheet published within thirty-five miles
of Cairo: "How long will the people of this hitherto 'Free
State ' suffer this shameful enaction to disgrace their statute
book?" 52
There was a widespread feeling that the law was uncon-
stitutional; some said that it could not be enforced against a
hostile public opinion. The law was applied, however, to
various cases; and Negroes seeking homes on the prairies of
Illinois were put upon the block and sold to the highest bidder.
In 1857 a free mulatto named Jackson Redman was arrested
in St. Clair county and found guilty of violating the act of
February 12, 1853; legal notices were accordingly posted up
about the streets of Belleville offering Redman for sale at pub-
lic auction. Only the interposition of Gustave Koerner, the
German republican leader who advanced the sum of $62.50 to
cover the fines and cost, saved the victim from the clutches of
the black law. Such cases generally aroused widespread indig-
nation, although apologists were to be found; D. J. Van Deren,
the editor of the Mattoon Gazette, even advocated the reestab-
lishment of slavery in the state as preferable to the possibility
of extending to the Negroes political and social equality. 53
Sympathy for the Negro, whether the southern slave or the
northern victim of the black laws, was aroused by the publica-
tion of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. Hundreds of copies of
every edition were avariciously consumed by interested Illi-
noisians. Proslavery sympathizers sneered at this "higher
82 New Orleans Bee clipped in Morgan Journal, April 28, 1853; Illinois
State Register, February 24, 1853; Illinois Journal, March i, 1853; Ottawa Free
Trader, February 26, 1853. Cf. Galena Jeffersonian clipped in Qmncy Whig,
April ii, 1853; Alton Courier, April 14, 1853.
5S Joliet Signal, March i, 1852; St. Clair Tribune, April 17, 1857; Belleville
Advocate, April 22, 1857; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, August 6, 14, 1857.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 227
revelation of an abolition prophetess," but the friends of the
Negro in Illinois were inspired to undertake the work of secur-
ing for them equal rights before the law. In spite of ill-suc-
cess bills were constantly introduced into the legislature to
allow Negroes to testify in the courts, to abolish the distinction
between Negroes and whites in the public schools, to repeal all
laws making distinctions between the races. None of these
propositions, however, received the necessary support. Public
men of the day, nevertheless, were timid about the Negro
question; many members of the republican party even were
frightened by the specter of "Negro equality" paraded by
their opponents. When in 1857 the Joliet True Democrat
came out in favor of extending the right of suffrage to the col-
ored men of Illinois, many republican organs bolted for cover,
while others refused to commit themselves.
Northern Illinois was much more charitable to the Negro
than Egypt. Race hatred often broke out in southern towns;
in 1857 people of Mound City undertook to drive out all
Negroes. Only in Chicago did the colored people display any
aggressiveness in defense of their rights. There they held
mass meetings and sent a delegate to the Colored National
Convention at Cleveland in 1848; they urged that the black
code be repealed to wipe out this injustice. In their Chicago
Literary Society they openly condemned the fugitive slave law'
and the black law of 1853, ur m g tne repeal of both. They
even organized to protect each other from being borne back
to bondage under the operation of the fugitive slave law, and
in 1860 a colored military company was formed in Chicago.
Although a state colonization society had an active existence
in Illinois, receiving support from the leaders of all political
parties, a colored people's convention at Chicago in 1853
rejected the idea of colonization in all its forms; in the closing
years of the decade, however, the proposition of emigration
to Hayti received considerable support from them. 54
The Negro population of the state dwelt in true humility
in obscure corners of the towns and cities, with their own
54 M ound City Emporium, August 6, 1857; Gem of the Prairie, September
23, 1848; Chicago Democrat, October 9, 1850, June 20, 1851; Illinois State
Register, November 6, 1853; Central Illinois Gazette, August 18, 1858; Chicago
Press and Tribune, April 26, 1859.
228 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
churches and sometimes separate schools maintained with the
assistance of white patrons; only now and then were appeals
made for aid in purchasing the freedom of relatives in the
south. The tranquillity of the black men's domicile was dis-
turbed by kidnappers and slave hunters. Cases of kidnap-
ping and carrying off of free Negroes were fairly common in
the southern part of the state, where organized bands of kid-
nappers operated boldly under the knowledge that the Negroes
would not be admitted to the witness stand. Matters became
so bad in Cairo that the mayor called out the citizens to break
up the operations of a local gang of armed kidnappers, who
worked in league with a band of Missourians. 55
In 1848 in the case of Illinois v. Sherman Thurston and
Thomas Field, Judge H. T. Dickey of the seventh judicial cir-
cuit had declared unconstitutional the section of the code defin-
ing kidnapping as criminal. Fortified by the fugitive slave law
of 1850 Missouri slave hunters made their appearance in
Negro settlements in northern Illinois creating a panic among
even the older colored residents, many of whom fled to Canada
for protection; United States Marshal Benjamin Bond and his
successors pursued various fugitives to Chicago only to find that
their victims had been secreted or hurried off to safety in the
Queen's dominion. While the law took its course in downstate
'communities, it became generally recognized that in the hostile
atmosphere of Chicago, the Illinois terminus of the under-
ground railroad, execution of the fugitive slave law was im-
possible except at the muzzle of the musket. When in June,
1851, a Negro resident of Chicago was forcibly arrested and
claimed as Moses Johnson, a fugitive slave belonging to
a Missourian, the city was alive with excitement. Special con-
stables were created, and five companies of militia called out.
A surging tide of humanity surrounded the hall in which the
trial was carried on, contemplating a rescue if the case went
against the alleged fugitive. The commissioner who conducted
the trial, however, discharged the prisoner, and the pent up
energies of the crowd found a harmless safety valve in the
celebration of his release. Cases of fugitives being snatched
from the custody of the officers were rather frequent, Negroes
55 Cairo Weekly Times and Delta, July 29, 1857.
THE GROWING PAINS OF SOCIETY 229
often constituting the rescuing parties ; republican city officials
winked at these affairs and treated them as good jokes. Mean-
while the conductors of the underground railroad were busily
forwarding their human freight from the south on to Canada
and freedom. Even consignments of fifteen and twenty pas-
sengers were successfully dispatched to their destination. 56
The most famous rescue of the period was the Ottawa case
in which a group of leading citizens on October 20, 1859, par-
ticipated in the rescue of a fugitive from the custody of the
United States marshal. 57 Seven of the rescuers were promptly
indicted by the federal grand jury; John Hossack, one of the
most prominent of the group, was tried first and found guilty
by the federal district court. In October, 1860, he and his
associates were given small jail sentences as well as fines. Even
the republicans acknowledged an obligation to the constitutional
guarantee; it is interesting to note that "the jury who con-
victed Hossack under the Fugitive Slave law, stood Eight
Republicans and Four Democrats and were not over two hours
in making their verdict." 58 The republican state central com-
mittee refused to involve itself in the case financially; but
Mayor Wentworth of Chicago assumed responsibility for the
payment of the fines and directed a popular subscription for the
payment of the costs of the case so as to hasten the day of the
prisoners' release. The local democracy washed their hands
of this instance of mob violence so that the case played an
important part in the closing weeks of the campaign for
Lincoln's election.
56 Gem of the Prairie, October 7, 1848; Western Citizen, November 5, 1850,
June 10, 1851; Chicago Democrat, June 4, 5, 6, 7, 1851, October 10, 1859,
Chicago Daily Journal, June 7, 1851; Aurora Guardian, December 7, 14, 1854;
Chicago Weekly Democrat, January 6, 1855; Chicago Democrat, October 10, 1859.
57 Ottawa Free Trader, October 22, November 5, December 31, 1859.
58 " i W as on the jury myself and know how hard it was to vote against
my prejudices." Isaac R. Hitt to Trumbull, December 17, 1860, Trumbull
manuscripts.
X. CHURCH AND SCHOOL, 1850-1860
DURING the fifties the foundations of a democratic educa-
tional system were firmly laid in Illinois. At the beginning
of this decade, although the state boasted eighty-one private
schools, the public school was lacking in many towns and cities;
and in none of the rural regions, not even the counties of north-
ern Illinois into which New England settlers were transplant-
ing their township system and their ideal of free common
schools, were there adequate educational facilities. The 1848
report of Secretary of State H. S. Cooley, ex officio superin-
tendent of common schools, presented an incomplete list of
2,002 schools with an enrollment of 5 1,447 pupils. 1 Several of
these, however, were private or select schools; at that time
Chicago alone had nineteen and two years later about thirty,
although only four public schools existed to justify its claim
for generous provision in this field. Springfield likewise sup-
ported its quota of private schools, but nobody seemed disposed
to push the matter of establishing a system of common schools.
In 1850 the federal census takers encouraged the advocates
of public schools with a list of 4,054 schools and an attendance
of 125,790; at the same time they fostered a wholesome con-
cern over the illiteracy returns: 41,283 persons over 20 years
of age were found who could neither read nor write, seven-
eighths of whom were native born Americans. These, it was
noted, were mainly residents of southern districts, the counties
south of Springfield having three-eighths of the schools and
five-eighths of the illiteracy. Not a single school or academy
was to be found in such older communities as Logan, St. Clair,
and Wayne counties, where true Egyptian darkness prevailed.
Public opinion was being prepared for the work of the
coming decade. An "Illinois State Educational Society" was
1 Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report, i6:clxvi; Aurora Beacon,
May 31, 1849; Alton Telegraph, June 22, 1849.
230
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 231
organized in a protracted series of meetings in the winter of
1846 and 1847 m which resolutions were passed in favor of
alteration of the school law and of the appointment of a super-
intendent of public instruction. The editors of the state were
requested to devote a portion of their columns to " the deeply
interesting and important subject of common school educa-
tion." 2 Thomas M. Killpatrick, president of the society, was
authorized to act as its agent in imparting and receiving infor-
mation on the subject of schools in the absence of a state
superintendent. He went about the state lecturing on the needs
of the state along educational lines; and the second annual
meeting of the society at Springfield, January 15,1 849, attracted
wide attention to its aggressive program. 3 Local and county
meetings to promote interest in education came to be held in
various parts of the state at which permanent educational
associations or societies were organized.
Some of the more prominent educators in the state, among
them President Jonathan Blanchard of Knox College and the
Reverend Francis Springer of Springfield, were brought out
on the lecture platform. Professor Jonathan B. Turner of
Jacksonville College, a minister and practical farmer, began
to loom up as a prominent figure in this educational propaganda.
He was already attracting state wide attention with a pet scheme
for a state agricultural or industrial university, which received
the support of the farmers and of many practical business men.
The teachers, however, condemned this "wildcat" scheme as
a "worse than Utopian dream," and centered their attention
on a state normal school, at the same time trying to kill Tur-
ner's hobby by having professorships of agriculture established
in the colleges of the state. But either faction, it was argued,
could build only upon an efficient common school system, toward
which the first step should be the creation of the office of super-
intendent of public instruction; the result was an agitation
which bore fruit in the public school laws of 1854 and 1855.
Matters came to a head in the winter of 1853 and 1854. At
2 Sangamo Journal, April 29, 1847.
3 Illinois Journal, September 29, 1848, January 26, 1849, July 25, 1850; Gem
of the Prairie, October 14, 1848, January 6, 1849; Beardstoiun Gazette, Octo-
ber 25, 1848; Rockford Forum, January 3, 1849; Illinois State Register, January
23, 1849; Aurora Beacon, February 15, 1849; Prairie Farmer, March, 1849.
232 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
a common school convention at Jerseyville, December 19, 1853,
arranged by Turner and his followers, he, as chairman of the
committee on resolutions, presented a program which, except
for its mention of a state industrial university, was everything
that the strongest supporters of educational facilities could
desire. On December 26 the leaders of the school teachers
assembled a convention at Bloomington; after a struggle
between the normal school advocates and the industrial college
minority the meeting adopted resolutions for the establish-
ment of a state normal school, of a state educational journal,
and for the appointment of a state superintendent of public
instruction; after the adjournment of the convention, a
state teachers institute was organized to meet in annual
session. 4
The pressure of public opinion was now sufficient to secure
legislative 'action. In the constitutional convention of 1847
the friends of educational reform had secured a favorable
report from the committee on education, but the proposed
article presented by John M. Palmer was finally defeated in
the open convention. Since that time the assembly had enacted
a few items on education, beginning with the act of April 13,
1849; the general trend was to make it easier to secure by
taxation the funds necessary for the establishment and main-
tenance of public schools. 5 A bill to create the office of state
superintendent passed the house in 1 849 but failed in the senate.
Finally, however, in a proclamation calling the special session
of February 9, 1854, Governor Matteson included the propo-
sition " to amend the school law and provide a superintendent
of common schools for the state." After various propositions
for a general free school system supported by a public tax
had been defeated, a law was passed providing for an elective
superintendent to hold office for two years commencing in
1856 a temporary appointee of the governor to serve until
the election in November, 1855. Meantime, according to the
law, this officer, Ninian W. Edwards, drew up a bill providing
4 Peru Dally Chronicle, January 5, 6, 7, 1854; official proceedings in
Alton Courier, January 3, 1854; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report,
1 6 : clxxvi-clxxix.
5 Journal of Convention of 1847, p. 352-353; Laics of 1849, p. 153-179;
Laws of 1851, p. 127-130.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 233
for a general system of free schools which was presented at
the next session of the legislature. Edwards recommended the
use of the township as the unit for school purposes, with the
township directors to combine in a county convention to elect
a county superintendent; the legislature, however, retained the
district system. Important gains, however, were made in the
provisions for a state school tax, for unlimited local taxation,
and for a free school in every district for six months in the
year. 6
This law was passed by the representatives of northern
Illinois in spite of opposition from most of Egypt. St. Clair
county, however, unanimously supported the proposition be-
cause of the popularity of education among the Germans there,
led by men like George Bunsen, school commissioner of St.
Clair county, who was later appointed a member of the first
state school board. The wealthier northern counties of the
state wanted education badly enough to pay more than their
share for it; they proved this to the south by arranging the
distribution of the two mill tax on the compound basis of
population and territory two-thirds according to the school
children and one-third according to the number of townships.
Some of the northern counties received less than half what they
contributed, while southern counties doubled their contribu-
tions. This consideration, reenforced by the complaints from
northern districts of the unfair distribution of the state funds,
reconciled many parts of Egypt to the law, and the school fever
began to carry all before it. 7
The law, however, was criticized by Superintendent Ed-
wards as containing many obscure and unjust features. On
February 16, 1857, therefore, in the face of attempts to repeal
the statute, an amendatory act was passed which cleared away
many obscurities and added certain necessary details. In the
6 Laws of 1854, p. 13-15; Laws of 1855, p. 51 ff. The supporters of J. B.
Turner in a convention at Macoupin, February 24-25, recommended his appoint-
ment as state superintendent; he was regarded by many, however, as too
visionary and too destructive in his interests. Alton Courier, March 9, 1854.
7 Orwell Sexton to Trumbull, June i, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts. In cer-
tain particulars it worked hardships in southern Illinois, because of the difficulty
of getting teachers and of continuing the schools for the six months period
required. See P. Knowlton to William H. Powell, September 22, 1857, and
reply, Illinois State Journal, October 14, 1857.
234 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
same session provision was made for the establishment and
maintenance of a state normal university, which was promptly
located at Bloomington. 8
Under this encouraging legislation, rapid strides were
made. In 1850 poorly trained teachers conducted a large
share of the few schools that existed, and the terms were often
only three months. Two-thirds of the school buildings were
log houses and only one-fifteenth brick or stone. Many of
the rest were shanties or temporary shacks. The average
worth of 21 school buildings in Stark county was $65. But
in the two years of service of William H. Powell as superin-
tendent for 1857 and 1858 three thousand schoolhouses were
built, bringing the total well over 8,500, nearly two thousand
school districts were organized with a total enrollment of
440,339, making only i child of school age in 15 not in
attendance; the average school term was now six and five-
sixths months. 9
Considerable improvement was also made in the caliber
of the teaching staff. Before 1850 almost anyone with a super-
ficial knowledge of the most common and necessary branches
of education was accepted for service. Under the new laws,
however, prospective teachers had to pass examinations show-
ing qualifications for the teaching of all the seven branches
named in the laws. County commissioners found this work of
examining candidates especially burdensome because so few
were able to come up to the requirements. "It is a common
occurrence for persons to apply who have taught school for
years, and cannot answer the simplest questions, such as chil-
dren twelve years old ought to answer, and generally can
answer readily," wrote a conscientious commissioner. 10
There was at all times a dearth of available teachers in
the west. A considerable percentage of those already engaged
were New Englanders or easterners, and in view of the grow-
ing demand the National Educational Society through their
8 Illinois State Register, March 20, April 3, 1856; Superintendent of Public
Instruction, Report, 2:52-68; i6:cxcii; Laws of 1857, p. 295 ff.
9 Cook, Educational History of Illinois, 85-86; Superintendent of Public
Instruction, Report, 2:8-9, 68-69.
10 Ottawa Free Trader, May 3, 1851; N. H. Abbott to French, March n,
1852, French manuscripts.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 235
agent, ex-Governor Slade of Vermont, sought to transfer to
the west well-trained classes of eastern young women as mis-
sionaries in the cause of education. In the period after 1847,
when Slade secured the cooperation of the Illinois Education
Society in the work of securing places for his proteges, he
made regular visits to the state, bringing sixteen young women
to Illinois in 1847 and eighteen in 1848, thirty per cent of
the entire number sent west. The fourteenth class of teachers
was sent west in September, 1853, and the work continued
through the decade. The complaint of western advocates
of education was that the young women were not brought on
fast enough and that " instead of teaching other folk's
children, [they] soon find employment in teaching their
own." 11
This importation of teachers naturally aroused objections
from various quarters. Certain democratic politicians, includ-
ing the great Douglas, who came to Illinois himself as a
Vermont Yankee schoolmaster, pointed out the danger that
these selected emissaries of abolitionism would try to convert
the youth of Illinois into the likeness of "canting" "freedom-
shrieking" New England demagogues. 12 Moreover, Secre-
tary of State Cooley in his educational report of 1851 sug-
gested that such teachers were bound to bring in a spirit of
condescension growing out of their lack of sympathy with
western habits, customs, and feelings. In both instances such
ungenerous criticism proved unwarranted but furnished an
argument for a local supply of teachers. The colleges of the
state were heavily drawn upon but were never able to supply
the demand, nor were their graduates specifically trained for
the teaching profession. This situation finally led to the found-
ing of a normal school at Bloomington, but the decade closed
while its first classes were preparing for graduation.
In spite of the limited supply, teachers continued to be
entirely too meagerly compensated, although salaries nearly
11 Illinois Journal, November 28, December i, 1848; Illinois State Register,
December 2, 1851, August 4, 1853; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report,
i6:clv ff. It was found that they made excellent wives and mothers, two-thirds
of them settling down to domestic life before a period of five years elapsed.
12 Belleville Advocate, February 18, 1857; Ottawa Free Trader, March 15,
1851.
236 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
doubled during the decade, averaging in the case of male
teachers about $35 a month. For financial reasons the general
prejudice against "female teachers" began to decline, as they
never received much more than half what was given to men.
With the increasing professional spirit among Illinois teachers,
county institutes were organized and in some places were aided
by county appropriations. The State Teachers' Institute was
organized at Bloomington in December, 1853; in accordance
with its decision an educational publication entitled the Illinois
Teacher, edited by members of the institute, made its appear-
ance in 1855. From the outset it exercised an important
influence on educational thought.
Higher education made some notable gains during the
decade. Public high schools were established at Chicago,
Ottawa, and Canton, though voted down as premature in
Quincy; school associations undertook to provide similar facil-
ities in Petersburg, Belleville, and other towns. A general
act for the incorporation of academies and seminaries of
learning became a law in February, 1851; academies and
seminaries increased in number and improved in the facilities
offered to their patrons. 13 The old established colleges of
the state were in such a prosperous condition, especially the
denominational schools, that many friends of education came
to believe that the time when it was necessary for the state
to foster a college had forever passed. Illinois College at
Jacksonville suffered a $25,000 loss by fire in 1853, but the
amount was replaced by local subscription and the institution
continued out of debt with a generous endowment; $50,000
was added to its resources as a result of a two years campaign
started in 1858. Shurtleff and Knox colleges were the other
more flourishing older institutions Knox with buildings and
grounds worth $120,000 being " said to be the third institution
of learning in point of wealth, in the United States." 14
13 The Ottawa High School Journal was published by the schools of that
community, Ottawa Free Trader, May 1 6, 1857. A gymnasium was provided
for the boys of the Chicago high school. Chicago Press and Tribune, May 27,
1859; Laws of 1851, p. 85-87.
14 Alton Courier, January 19, 1853; Sturtevant, Autobiography, 274-276;
Quincy Whig, January 17, 1853; Presbytery Reporter, 4:304; 5:284-285.
See J. Blanchard to Turner, October 19, 1848, Turner manuscripts; Chicago
Daily Democratic Press, July 14, 1857,
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 237
No less than two dozen institutions of higher learning
were incorporated in the period from 1848 to 1860, of which
six or eight succeeded in becoming permanent colleges. Illinois
State University was the ambitious name of a Lutheran insti-
tution incorporated and located at Springfield in 1852, to
replace the Lutheran college at Hillsboro; it started out
inauspiciously, however, in spite of the able administration
of its president, Reverend Francis Springer. Several other
ambitious undertakings struggled along to final success. Illinois
Wesleyan University, incorporated in 1853, began to get in
running order by the close of the decade. Northwestern Uni-
versity was incorporated on January 28, 1851, as a Methodist
educational enterprise. A site was selected on the lake front
eleven miles north of the city of Chicago, and a university was
planned which they hoped would become the equal in every
respect of Yale and of Harvard, with a law department and
biblical institute. Efforts at the start were confined to the
department of literature, science, and arts. This promising
enterprise was slow in getting started; instruction opened on
November 5, 1855, with a faculty of two and hardly more
than a dozen students, and two years elapsed before Reverend
R. S. Foster assumed charge as president. 15 On January 30,
1857, the old University of Chicago was incorporated. Sena-
tor Stephen A. Douglas was able to subserve his own interests
in land speculation and at the same time to pose as a patron
of learning by offering to contribute ten acres of his holdings
in the suburb of Cottage Grove to the projected Baptist Uni-
versity in Chicago on the condition that a fund of $100,000
should be raised for the erection of a college building and the
endowment of the institution. Douglas was just then under
fire from the republicans for denouncing the opposition of the
clergy to his position on slavery. On July 4, 1857, the corner
stone of the main building was laid; Reverend J. E. Roy in
his prayer sent up a petition " for our poor colored brethren
in bondage, even though Judge Douglas himself is present
among us ; " and I. N. Arnold, the orator of the day, a zealous
republican leader, delivered an antislavery address taking
15 Wilde, Northwestern University, 1:166-168.
238 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
exception to the policies of Douglas, who was seated near him
on the stand. But with his surrounding lots increased in value
some $20,000 by the location of the new building, Douglas
could afford to remain silent amid these evidences of ingrati-
tude. 16 Born in this atmosphere of political controversy and
delayed by the financial crash of 1857, the university opened
in temporary quarters; but under the aggressive leadership of
President William Jones a department of law was organized
and went into operation in the fall of 1857, shortly after the
dedication of the new buildings. For many years the univer-.
sity led a precarious existence and did not find a place among
the more important educational institutions of Illinois.
Many of the traditional earmarks of college life began to
appear as the increasing attendance at all institutions .brought
together 1 larger groups of students. Rates of tuition and living
expenses were generally very moderate ; a collegiate education
could easily be acquired at from $80 to $100 a year. This was
possible because the faculties were groups of patient, long-
suffering, philanthropic enthusiasts serving for a bare living;
McKendree College, the oldest institution in the state, paid
to the instructors of eighty students, in house rent and in
salaries, less than $1,500 a year. Other institutions made
more generous compensation for teaching, but were frequently
in arrears. Although the professors were said to be hard
taskmasters, making excessive demands for intellectual work
and turning out dyspeptic looking graduating classes, the stu-
dents had the requisite physical energy for the traditional
affrays with local town boys. 17
The strong New England atmosphere of educational cir-
cles and the idealism of the instructional staffs made the colleges
of the state hotbeds of antislavery feeling. Reverend Howard
Malcolm was elected president of Shurtleff College, the Bap-
tist institution in Upper Alton, after he had been compelled
to resign the presidency of the college at Georgetown, Ken-
tucky, because of having voted in favor of the gradual abolition
of slavery. President Blanchard of Knox was one of the most
16 Our Constitution, July n, August 22, 1857; Ottawa Free Trader, July n,
1857; Rock River Democrat, August n, 1857.
17 Chicago Daily Journal, January n, 1850; Alton Courier clipped in
Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 29, 1854; Alton Courier, February 21. 1854.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 239
active abolitionists in the state. In 1848 he took part in the
campaign as elector on the free soil ticket and engaged in other
antislavery activities that finally aroused one of the conserva-
tive professors to organize a party in the board of trustees, of
which he was himself a member, to oust Blanchard from the
presidency. A stirring contest took place, with the board nearly
evenly divided; but the fortuitous vacancy of six places in that
body gave opportunity for adding six " good, honest, upright
antislavery men" to safeguard Blanchard's position for the
future. President J. M. Sturtevant of Jacksonville College
took the stump in 1856 for Fremont and "bleeding Kansas;"
the entire faculty there, notably Professor Jonathan B. Turner,
were aggressive antislavery men. In 1857 they went so far
as to expel a student who persisted against the advice of one
of the professors in giving a political anti-republican address
upon a public occasion. This, however, seemed too much like
a sacrifice of that freedom of utterance that these educators
claimed for themselves, too much like the prostitution of educa-
tion to partisan politics. 18
With the growing general interest in education, attention
had turned to the rapidly accumulating "university and semi-
nary fund " reserved out of the income from the federal land
grant of 1818. By 1850 it had reached nearly $150,000, and
there was a general demand that practical use be made of the
money. The denominational colleges proposed that this fund
be divided among them and that they be erected into a univer-
sity subject to the visitation and control of a board of state
regents, recommending honorary degrees " to be conferred by
18 Alton Telegraph, September 21, 1849; Illinois State Register, April 8, u,
1857; Sturtevant, Autobiography, 279-282; also Turner manuscripts. J. Blanch-
ard to Salmon P. Chase, June 30, 1849, Chase manuscripts. The Illinois
State Journal, April 15, 1859, undertook to justify the faculty declaring that
" the tendency of the teachings of all our Colleges was to Republicanism," that
almost all men of letters were republicans; "do you propose to fill the professor-
ships with bogtrotters from Tipperary, in the same way that you fill the Police
and the Post Offices?" it queried. Blanchard resigned in 1858 and after two
years of pastoral work accepted the presidency of Wheaton College. This insti-
tution founded by the Methodists was in 1860 transferred to Congregational
control by the election of a majority of orthodox Congregational members of
the board. " This was done," according to Blanchard, " on condition that their
testimonies against slavery and secret societies should be kept good, which
condition has been faithfully fulfilled by the present Board." Chicago Tribune,
April 2, 1867.
2 4 o THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the University of Illinois in conclave assembled." 19 This
arrangement, which would have a state as well as a collegiate
dignity, was preferred to the placing of the fund at the dis-
posal of any existing college or to the erection of a new com-
peting institution. In furtherance of such an arrangement the
college heads met at Springfield in the fall of 1849 an d 1850
to influence legislation. President Blanchard of Knox College
proposed that a common school professorship for the educa-
tion of teachers, and perhaps an agricultural professorship,
might be annexed to the various colleges out of their respective
shares in the funds. 20
The establishment of chairs of agriculture were proposed
largely to offset the propaganda carried on by that exemplary
democrat, Jonathan B. Turner of Jacksonville College, in favor
of a state agricultural or industrial university. As a veteran
student of the educational needs of Illinois, he claimed that
the existing system of collegiate education was entirely un-
adapted to the needs of the industrial classes who comprised
over ninety-five per cent of the entire population of the state:
the colleges virtually shut out the mass of the people and, like
Oxford and Cambridge, confined the advantage of a liberal
education to the few. Turner proposed that, in addition to
the usual branches, the system of education should be adapted
to the particular callings of the industrial classes, especially
that of the agriculturists. In October, 1850, he brought his
plan to the attention of Governor French and suggested that
he be given an opportunity to address the legislature on the
subject. 21
Turner soon secured a favorable hearing from a large por-
tion of the people of the state and organized an active propa-
ganda to secure the authorization of his project. He was a
prophet without honor in his home city of Jacksonville ; neither
of the rival local papers gave him any real support. The
Morgan Journal edited by Dr. E. R. Roe, later teacher in the
19 See Richard M. Young to French, November 23, 1849, E. Wentworth to
French, December 13, 1847, June 23, 1849, French manuscripts; see also Illinois
State Register, April 14, 1848.
20 J. Blanchard to French, December 23, 1850, French manuscripts; J.
Blanchard to Turner, October 19, 1848, Turner manuscripts.
21 Turner to French, October n, 1850, French manuscripts; French to
Turner, January 29, 1851, Turner manuscripts.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 241
state normal university, vigorously attacked Turner while pro-
fessing to approve of his main purpose of educating the masses
in a thorough manner. Nothing daunted, he went about the
state spreading his gospel through lectures, addresses, and
contributions to the various newspapers and periodicals. His
active campaign was opened November 18, 1851, in a conven-
tion at Granville which urged the establishment of an indus-
trial university. Turner's hand was plainly visible in this
move: he was made chairman of the committee which reported
the resolutions that were adopted, he unfolded at length his
plan for the establishment of the proposed institution, and he
was placed at the head of a central committee appointed to
call a general state convention of the friends of such an
institution. 22
In spite of this propaganda Governor French, a friend and
supporter of McKendree College, but a believer in agricultural
education, recommended the division of the university funds
among the several colleges in his message of 1852; but the
house committee refused to report in favor of any specific
disposition of the money. The second industrial convention
met at Springfield June 8, 1852; some of the opponents of
the scheme attended, notably Professor John Evans of Chicago,
one of the founders of Northwestern University, Dr. E. R.
Roe of Jacksonville, and Professor Cummings of Lebanon
College ; but the aid of men like John A. Kennicott of Chicago,
who was selected to preside over the convention, and Wil-
liam H. Powell of La Salle, its secretary, had been enlisted in
favor of the plan; and a resolution to memorialize the legis-
lature for a state industrial university was successfully passed.
But opponents appeared on all sides among the friends of
existing collegiate institutions; John M. Peck pronounced
Turner's theory a "wild project," "fascinating, but imprac-
ticable and useless." The great need of the day, it was held,
was more academies and common schools; enough colleges
already existed; farmers, moreover, would not send their
sons to one great central school; as to state schools, had
22 Morgan Journal, January 10, 1852; Illinois Journal, February 12, Novem-
ber 29, 1851, January 3, 1852; Prairie Farmer, February, 1852; Turner, Plan
for an Industrial University for the State of Illinois.
242 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
they not always proved wasteful and imbecile as to literary
instruction? 23
In November, 1852, another industrial university conven-
tion assembled at Chicago, and again preparations were made
to place Turner's plan before the legislature. A committee
consisting of Turner, L. L. Bullock, and Ira L. Peck was
appointed to address the citizens of the state in its favor, while
a memorial to congress asking for a grant of public lands to
aid in the establishment of an industrial institution was later
prepared by a committee headed by ex-Governor French. The
convention adjourned to meet at Springfield on January 4
after the legislature convened. Meetings of farmers and
mechanics were called at various points to be represented at
this session; and delegates were present from Buel Institute,
La Salle County Agricultural Society, the Northwestern Porno-
logical Association, and other groups. An " Industrial League
of the State of Illinois " was organized to disseminate infor-
mation by lectures, articles, and other literature. 24
The idea of federal aid by a land grant had been pro-
mulgated by Turner in an article in the Prairie Farmer of
March, 1852, and had been taken up by the Springfield con-
vention three months later. It became thereafter the most
unique feature of the Turner plan for industrial education.
Indeed, the only immediate result of this agitation was the
adoption of a resolution by the legislature asking congress to
appropriate 500,000 acres of lands to each state to aid in the
establishment of an industrial university. Turner and his asso-
ciates in this enterprise, moreover, entered into extensive corre-
spondence with leaders in other states with the view of securing
their cooperation for united action on the part of the states
to secure such a donation of public lands from the federal
government. Representative Washburne presented the Illinois
resolutions in congress in April, 1854. Representative Richard
Yates from the Springfield district, who had in 1851 and 1852
brought Turner's plan to the attention of the United States
patent office and of the National Agricultural Society, now
23 Prairie Farmer, April-August, 1852; Peck to French, June 7, 1852, French
manuscripts. The Eclectic Journal of Education of Chicago opposed Turner's
plan.
24 Incorporated February 10, 1853, Laws of 1853, p. 514; Turner manuscripts.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 243
prepared to secure congressional action and requested Turner
to draft a bill. The industrial league, meantime, kept up an
active propaganda; Dr. R. C. Rutherford was engaged to
bring its proposition before the people of the northern coun-
ties; and Turner was induced to give his energies entirely to
the lecture field for several months, beginning December, 1853.
An informal indorsement was secured from a mass meeting
of the Illinois State Agricultural Society on October 6, 1854.
Another convention was held at Springfield in January, 1855;
its committee, in consultation with legislative committees, pre-
pared a bill which gave every promise of adoption when it
was discovered that as a result of defalcation the treasury was
exhausted and the measure had to be postponed. 25
The advocates of orthodox education and the supporters
of the existing colleges continued to wage an unrelenting war
on this proposition. . Many lukewarm advocates of educa-
tional reform, moreover, were satisfied with the educational
legislation of 1854 and 1855 and, with excitement increasing
over slavery, shifted their interest to this new field. Some
champions of the common people tellingly pointed out that the
industrial league had a "monstrous scheme" which would
stratify class lines and permit the favored few to be trained
to do the thinking of the nation, while the masses, the " com-
mon trash," would be trained for the performance of their
drudgery. Many denominational school teachers argued that
the state was " incompetent to control the subject of educa-
tion," that this was the function of the church. 20 Others like
State Superintendent Edwards ignored the federal land grant
proposition and objected to the use of state funds as involving
heavy taxation, since the college and seminary funds had
25 Illinois Journal, June 9, 1852, February 18, 1853; Carriel, Life of Turner,
104, iio-iu; Free West, November 2, 1854; Prairie Farmer, May, 1855. Bron-
son Murray of Ottawa, who was president of the Third Industrial Convention at
Chicago, had suggested the organization of the league and generously con-
tributed to its support. Yates to Turner, June 25, 1852, April 14, 1854, Turner
manuscripts. See Turner and Murray manuscripts.
26 Macoupin Statesman clipped in Ottawa Weekly Republican, December
30, 1854. The Joliet Signal, however, dropped its support of the industrial uni-
versity because it feared that the advantages would be restricted to the wealthy
as it could not accommodate more than four hundred or five hundred students,
Illinois State Register, February 9, 1854. George Lumsden to Murray, February
16, 1853, in Carriel, Life of Turner, 131-133.
244 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
already been borrowed by the state and used for other pur-
poses. Some opponents professed to be opposed not to the
proposition per se but to the employment of state funds upon
a mere experiment. The Chiccego Democrat was warmly inter-
ested in agricultural education but urged a totally different
scheme; it proposed an agricultural college supported by an
endowment of scholarships given by farmers, in sums of one
hundred or one hundred and fifty dollars ; two thousand scholar-
ships would provide an annual income of $14,000, "a sum
fully capable of sustaining an able and sufficient corps of pro-
fessors in all the branches of science relating to agriculture,
and of defraying existing expenses." 27 A Northern Illinois
Agricultural College was chartered on February 12, 1853, by
a group of Putnam county backers, but the proposition fell
stillborn.
All these forces combined to make the local situation
unfavorable for action by the state government. After 1856
less popular discussion took place, although Turner and his
friends continued their activities. The new republican governor,
William Bissell, in his message of January, 1857, displayed a
favorable attitude toward the future establishment of an agri-
cultural university. Interest, however, was now transferred
to the national government, where the effort was to secure
federal aid. The aid of a large number of educators, journal-
ists, and politicians throughout the country had been enlisted
in support of the scheme; a definite league was now organized
to bring pressure to bear upon congress. In order to avoid
encountering the ill-feeling of easterners, who had already come
to regard with dismay the large grants to western states for
school and other purposes, it seemed wise to arrange for the
introduction of the proposition by an eastern representative.
For this reason Representative Morrill of Vermont was induced
to father a land grant measure for the endowment of an agri-
cultural college in every state in the union. Its advocates had
the disappointment of seeing the bill pass both houses of con-
gress, only to meet the veto of President Buchanan on Feb-
27 Prairie farmer, January, 1855 ; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, January
9, 15, 23, 1855; Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 15, September 16, 1854, July 28,
1855; Private Laws of 1853, 407-410.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 245
ruary 26, 1859. Three years later, with the nation torn by
civil discord, the measure was again carried through congress
and became law with President Lincoln's signature on July 2,
1862. So long a time had elapsed, however, since the project
had first taken form that few of the participants in the legis-
lation connected this important measure with the tireless activity
of Jonathan B. Turner in the early fifties in behalf of an Illinois
industrial university. Such, however, was the origin of a
measure which has determined the nature of a large number
of the higher educational institutions of this country; it was
an " Illinois idea," or, as John A. Kennicott enthusiastically
declared after its introduction in congress, " Illinois thunder." 28
With this period of Illinois history came other refinements
of modern civilization. Encouraging signs began to appear in
the religious life in the state. The total number of churches
had increased by 1850 to 1,223 an d in the next decade exactly
doubled, although the value of church property increased more
than fourfold. The Chicago of 1850, with twenty-six institu-
tions representing almost every denomination from Catholic
to Swedenborgian, freethinkers to orthodox Jews, was known
as the " city of churches." At the end of another decade the
city had 61 Protestant churches with an attendance of over
ten thousand, besides 59 sabbath schools and 3 1 mission schools.
Quincy, a city of seven thousand, had 16 churches with 2 others
in contemplation. Galesburg with a population of about five
thousand in 1855 had 9 churches; three Presbyterian, one
Baptist, one Congregational, one Universalist, one Lutheran,
one Methodist, and one Swedish Methodist. 29
Every denomination had a proportionate share in this
growth with the exception of the Baptists and Presbyterians,
who, however, with sixty per cent increases were able to retain
their respective second and third places. The Methodists,
28 Turner to Trumbull, October 7, 1857, Kennicott to Trumbull, January
25, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts; Trumbull to Turner, October 19, 1857, Turner
manuscripts. It was first introduced December 14, 1857, Congressional Globe,
35 congress, i session, 32, 36-37.
29 Chicago Democrat, September 19, 1848, May 4, 1849; Chicago Daily
Journal clipped in Illinois State Register, December 25, 1849; Presbytery
Reporter, 5:128. Eight hundred and ten dollars was paid for a single pew in
the Second Presbyterian church of Chicago, Western Citizen, December 31, 1850.
See also Quincy Whig, March 9, 1852; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, April 15,
1856.
246 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
increasing the number of their churches from 405 to 88 1 with
a membership of nearly one hundred thousand in 1860, main-
tained their lead. Methodism in the west, however, still
suffered from the neglect of the central organization; not a
bishop, newspaper, or book-room had been provided by the
General Conference for the Mississippi valley. The Illinois
Conference recovered, however, from the slump of the forties
and with the younger Rock River Conference enjoyed an active
existence. The denomination was still influenced by the untiring
energy and uncompromising antislavery conviction of its great
leader, Peter Cartwright. 30
The Baptists of the state, doubling in number in the decade,
continued to be the radical force they had been in previous
decades, even though the new generation of leaders showed
no names comparable to those of James Lemen and John
Mason Peck. In spite of strong southern ties, the church
showed a pronounced antislavery leaning, which, together with
an aggressive part in the temperance agitation of the day,
continued to make a strong appeal to the democratic yeoman
of Illinois. The Baptist organ, the Western Christian, pub-
lished at Elgin but removed to New York about 1850, had a
wide influence; it was radical, reformative in spirit, and demo-
cratic. The Christian churches, that most typical and at the
same time most unique expression of the western pioneer spirit
in religion, increased from 69 in 1850 to 148 in 1860; enthu-
siasm was inspired by the western tour in 1853 of the Reverend
Alexander Campbell, the founder of the denomination, who
filled a large number of Illinois appointments. 31
The Presbyterians by their divisions gained attention which
offset the energy lost in dissension. The radical wings estab-
lished their devotion to freedom without challenge, although
at times small groups left the denomination entirely because
of the bitterness of their reactions. The census of 1860 re-
turned 43 Cumberland, 18 Reformed, and 27 United churches
as against 272 in the main camp. The total membership of
all groups was 15,810.
30 Minutes of the Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
4:486-490, 524-529; 5:654-659; Free West, May 31, 1855.
31 Alton Courier, October 31, November i, 1853; Moses, Illinois, 2: 1077-1078
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 247
The heavy influx of the New England element brought
numbers of Congregationalists into Illinois. In the thirties
an agreement between eastern Congregationalists and the
Presbyterians had arranged for the affiliation of Illinois Con-
gregationalists with Presbyterian institutions; after a time,
however, the Congregationalists abandoned this policy and
began to establish congregations under their own name. The
number of churches increased in a decade from 46 to 140;
this registers the important growth in the northern tier of
counties through which the membership more than doubled
and reached the figure of 12,849. Not until April, 1851, was
a Congregational church established in Chicago; then the first
in the city was organized by the repudiated antislavery majority
of the Third Presbyterian Church, most of whom had New
England Congregational antecedents. Two other congrega-
tions were organized in Chicago during the decade. The
Illinois association remained a sturdy upholder of orthodoxy
in religion, if not in politics, and in 1859 excommunicated
Reverend J. Mason of Hamilton for denying the doctrine of
the trinity and the eternity of future punishment. 32 Members
of this denomination were reached by the Congregational
Herald of Chicago.
The strength of the Lutherans lay largely in the Germans
and Scandinavians who settled in and around Chicago and
Illinoistown. 33 Chicago added a Swedish Lutheran church
in 1853 to the German and Norwegian congregations
formed a half dozen years earlier. Some members of these
Lutheran groups, however, withdrew to support Evangelical
churches.
The Episcopal church maintained only a few dozen clergy-
men in the state in 1850, under the supervision of the pio-
neer Bishop Philander Chase; Chase died in 1852 at Jubilee
College after having seen the parishes of his diocese increase
from six to fifty-two. Five of the churches were located in
the city of Chicago, one of them in a Scandinavian parish.
32 Illinois State Register, January 6, 1860. Jonathan B. Turner in the
same year accepted the challenge of the Reverend James C. Richmond of
Milwaukee to defend Congregationalism against the doctrines of the Episcopal
church. Chicago Press and Tribune, May 24, 1859.
33 William H. Pickering to Gillespie, July 20, 1860, Gillespie manuscripts.
248 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Bishop Chase was succeeded by Henry J. Whitehouse, who had
been assistant bishop for a year. About fifty-two clergymen
were in active service in the state in 1860, with forty-six
churches numbering 3,070 communicants. The church was not
in a healthy condition; several parishes including Palestine,
Grove, Beardstown, Peoria, and Edwardsville, had to be
stricken from the roll as deficient; several large rural parishes
were vacant; and a heated controversy was waging between
Bishop Whitehouse and low church critics who attacked him
as "teaching Tractarian and Semi Romish Errors." 34 In
1858 the low church party set up an organ in Chicago, the
Western Churchman, to combat the influence of the official
publication, the Chicago Herald.
The Catholic church was gaining steadily in the larger
cities from the heavy immigration of Irish and foreign Cath-
olics. The Right Reverend James Oliver Van de Velde was
installed as successor to Bishop William Quarter as bishop of
Chicago in 1848, but gave way five years later to Bishop
Anthony O'Reagan; neither of these, however, aroused the
enthusiastic cooperation of the clergy or laity. The see of
Quincy was established in 1852, followed in 1857 by the erec-
tion of the episcopate of Alton. At the close of the decade
the Catholics established the Western Banner as their organ
at Chicago.
Contrary to expectations, the less orthodox and more liberal
denominations were showing, especially in the Yankee settle-
ments, some ability to move westward with the pioneer. Eight
Unitarian groups with four churches existed in 1850 and seven
Universalists; the New Covenant, a successful Universalist
publication, was established at Chicago in 1848. By 1860
liberal religion had spread in the cities to an extent that eleven
Unitarian 35 and thirty Universalist churches were located by
the census, enumerators.
Religious activity, however, was largely confined to the
34 Smith, Life of Philander Chase, 339-340; Aurora Beacon, October 25,
1860; Illinois State Register, July 27, 1854; Chicago Record, November i, 1858;
Church Record, January i, September 15, October i, 1859, August 15, Novem-
ber i, 1860.
35 Alton Courier, October 22, December 13, 1853; Illinois State Journal,
July i, 1857.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 249
towns and cities. In the smaller communities there were often
no church edifices and the various congregations alternated
in the use of some public building. In Beardstown, the court-
house was the common place of worship; the Episcopalians
conducted their services in the morning, the Presbyterians wor-
shipped in the afternoon, while the Methodists took their turn
in the evening; it was noted that about the same constituency
was present at each meeting. A church at Joliet was occupied
alternately by the Universalists and the Baptists. In other
places societies labored zealously to secure funds for their own
nouses of worship. An occasional congregation was distin-
guished by the possession of a parsonage. Regularly educated
and well-trained ministers were very rare in the west; gener-
ally speaking there was always a shortage of ministers, partly
because of the expanding field of activity and partly because
the rural congregations of the western states were almost con-
tinually in arrears with the salaries of their pastors. Many
congregations were wholly without provision for regular
preaching; but the humble and zealous itinerant preacher, the
pioneer in the work of evangelizing the frontier, reached a
large constituency by going his round among the sparse popula-
tion. Dr. Cartwright, the quaint and fearless pioneer clergy-
man, was at the age of seventy years still stationed at Spring-
field, duplicating some of the feats of his prime. On one occa-
sion he rode through almost incessant rain for ninety-four miles,
preached to numerous congregations, and " received as quar-
terage 'fifteen cents,' and by way of table expenses, a dozen
large apples." Since the great mass of the community were
never seen inside of the churches, Chicago Methodists com-
missioned a city missionary to return to apostolic usages; soon
an extensive system of street preaching was organized. 36
A more far-reaching remedy was the provision of facilities
for the education of a supply of specially trained religious
36 Illinois State Register, April 28, 1853 ; Illinois State Historical Society,
Transactions, 1901, p. 61-62. The West Urbana Congregationalists granted the
use of their new church to the Baptists on Sunday afternoon and later shared
their minister with the new school Presbyterian congregation. Graff, The Record
of Fifty Years, 9. Church Record, December i, 15, 1859; Illinois Journal,
December 28, 1848; Christian Review clipped in Ottawa Free Trader, March
22, 1851; Chicago Democrat, August 22, 1859; Autobiography of Peter
Cartwriffht.
250 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
leaders. The Northwestern Biblical Institute at Evanston,
later the Garrett Institute, was inaugurated by the Methodists,
January I, 1855 ; 37 an d after a few years it was attached to
Northwestern University. The Chicago Theological Seminary
was organized under Congregational auspices in 1854 and for-
mally opened in October, 1858, while the Presbyterians in
1857 incorporated and erected Blackburn Theological Semi-
nary at Carlinville; in 1859 McCormick Theological Seminary
was located at Chicago. New school Presbyterians of the
northwestern states started a project for a theological seminary
at Galena which, like a proposition for a Baptist theological
seminary for the northwest, bore no immediate fruit.
The Young Men's Christian Association made its way into
Illinois during this period. The association was organized in
Springfield in 1853 an d soon had desultory beginnings in
Peoria, Chicago, Quincy, and Rockford. The Chicago Asso-
ciation, permanently organized in 1858, provided a free read-
ing room and arranged a series of lectures for each winter.
This movement was greatly strengthened by taking advantage
of a decided tendency upon the part of the young men of the
cities to organize for their intellectual and moral improvement.
The large field for missionary work in Illinois was recog-
nized by all religious denominations, most of which had for-
mally accredited representatives in this field. The American
Home Missions Society and the American Missionary Asso-
ciation had their agents in Illinois, but the positions were
unattractive because of inadequate compensation. The mis-
sionaries, moreover, worked almost entirely in communities
of fair size and left the rural regions practically untouched. 38
These were reached, however, by the agents of the American
Bible Society and by the colporteurs sent out by the American
Tract Society.
Local Bible societies were formed in the cities in the period
after 1840 when the Chicago society was organized; active
work, however, came largely in the period after 1848, com-
mencing in the northern portion of the state. Before 1860
37 Chicago Weekly Democrat, January 6, 1855.
38 Reverend Joseph Gordon, the Presbyterian missionary for the Alton
presbytery in one year preached 136 sermons, converted 25 new members, and
traveled, 5,574 miles. Presbytery Reporter, 3:503; cf. ibid., 4:74.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL 251
one hundred and six county Bible societies and eight hundred
branch societies had been organized under the direction of
Amasa Lord, general agent for the state; they acted through
about 5,000 agents who without pay made personal visits to
every house in their respective districts carrying the Bible with
them. 39 Illinois was the second or third state in the Bible
cause. Remittances from Illinois to the central treasury of
the society were nearly equal to the total remittances of the
six surrounding states; over $40,000 per annum was raised in
the state by donations and sales.
In a somewhat different fashion the American Tract
Society through its paid agents reached into the state from
outside. The colporteurs dealt with precisely the same condi-
tions as the agents of the Bible Society but attempted a some-
what more intimate religious contact with the people, making
what were in many cases practically pastoral visits, the time
being occupied in religious exhortation often accompanied with
prayer. A sincere effort was often made to check intemper-
ance, sabbath breaking, and general tendencies toward immor-
ality; Illinoisians, however, frequently resented the highly
colored tales of prevailing immorality and religious indiffer-
ence that colporteurs incorporated in their letters to eastern
publications. 40
Although violent religious emotionalism was becoming
more and more rare, the camp meeting and revival continued;
in the closing weeks of the dreary Illinois winter, revival
meetings began to be held in almost every country meeting
house to continue until the arrival of Easter. It was an annual
event on the religious calendar of the state. In the early part
of 1858, however, an unusual spiritual awakening was per-
ceptible throughout the country. Revival meetings attracted
an unusual community wide interest, and a remarkable number
of conversions was reported. Large daily union prayer meet-
ings were held at Springfield, at Canton, at Metropolitan Hall
in Chicago, and in other places. The freedom from sectarian-
ism and the perfect cordiality with which the preachers and
laymen of the different churches labored seemed remarkable;
39 Belleville Advocate, March 25, 1857; Rockford Register, March 10, 1860.
40 Illinois State Register, May 12, 1853.
252 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
another feature was the freedom from the extravagancies and
the wild excitement that had usually attended such awakenings.
Only in the little community of Avoca did the meetings produce
the phenomenon known since the beginning of western revivals
as the "jerks;" there about a hundred young persons were
affected, producing the most ludicrous scenes. " Just imagine,"
said an eyewitness, " forty or fifty persons going through all
the different postures, twistings, bendings, strikings, kickings,
and other violent motions of which the human frame is capable,
together with occasional barking and other unusual sounds, and
you will have a faint idea of the scene exhibited here night
after night." 41 When the general excitement was over and
the statistics were calculated, it was found that Illinois with
10,460 converts was second only to New York in its share in
the great awakening.
41 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, March 16, 1858; see Neiu York Courier
and Enquirer clipped in Illinois State Journal, June 9, 1858.
XL THE APPEAL TO ARMS
LINCOLN'S election was interpreted by southern fire eaters
as a defiance of their threats to withdraw the planting
states from the union in order to work out southern nationality
in a separate confederacy. Disappointed democrats in Illinois
could not forbear pointing out the phases of republican policy
which seemed to justify an aggressive move from the south to
protect its rights. " It is not worth while to conceal the fact,
that the North is hopelessly abolitionized," declared the Belle-
ville Democrat. " To submit then, or secede, is forced upon
the South Thus far, they have justice and right
on their side We cannot see how they will in-
gloriously submit." 1 Even the State Register seemed to take
the position set up by the southern disunionists that a state
had the right to secede without infringing seriously any of the
powers delegated in the constitution, while sympathy with the
secession idea was especially strong in the southern counties.
The Cairo Gazette sought to clear up all misunderstanding by
announcing: "The statement that the inhabitants of Egypt are
in favor of the perpetuation of the Union by force, is unauthor-
ized. No such feeling exists. On the contrary, so far as our
observations have extended, the sympathies of our people are
mainly with the South." Since there was considerable evidence
that the south was already putting into practice a non inter-
course policy, the Gazette stopped to consider the effect of
secession upon the future of Cairo and arrived at the conclu-
sion that it would prosper whether the union was dissolved or
not. 2
Some republicans were prepared to support Greeley's rec-
ommendation to "let the erring sisters depart in peace." To
1 Belleville Democrat clipped in Belleville Weekly Advocate, November 16,
1860; see also Ottawa Free Trader, December 8, 29, 1860.
2 Illinois State Journal, November 21, 1860; Cairo Gazette, December 6,
20, 1860.
253
254 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
certain admirers of fundamental democracy, the south seemed
to be claiming the rights of small nations to self-government;
coercion, therefore, whether of the state or of individuals
involved an offense to the conscience of the American people,
which, according to the Rockford Register, " would be found
to be as much opposed to the exercise of arbitrary power over
a subjugated province, as they are to the transformation of this
government into a slave-holding despotism. If a separation
must come, let it be a peaceful one. Let all states that delib-
erately desire to go out of the Union, be permitted to do so in
peace." 3 Such a radical antislavery man as the Reverend
G. W. Bassett of Ottawa, issued a pamphlet entitled " A North-
ern plea for the right of secession " in which he maintained the
" absolute and unqualified right of the people of any State of
this Union to dissolve their political connections with the Gen-
eral Government whenever they chose." The Belleville
Advocate would have been willing to relieve the union of
the petulance of South Carolina and of the financial encum-
brance of Florida, but, "believing it unwise and dangerous
to admit in practice what we deny in theory," the best policy
seemed to be to require those states to obey the will of the
nation. 4
The general body of Lincoln's supporters rallied to the
task of preserving the union from the storm that was gathering
upon the horizon. It devolved upon them to prove that the
republican party was the party of the union. They reminded
each other of the wisdom of restraint in the flush of victory,
in order to convince the people of the south by their words
and acts that they were not half so fierce and ravenous as
represented, that they could be gracefully generous to a van-
quished foe. The enforcement of the fugitive slave law was
conceded as one of the rights to the enjoyment of which the
south was justly entitled. At the same time they insisted on
being "true to the North true to themselves true to the
3 Rockford Register, December 8, 1860, March 16, 1861; A. W. Metcalf
to Trumbull, December 18, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts.
4 Belleville Weekly Advocate, December 14, 1860; Ottawa Free Trader,
March 2, 1861. After the outbreak of the war Bassett delivered a sermon
in the courthouse at Ottawa, which was later published, in which he again
advocated the right of secession, and declared that " our country is at present
engaged in an unjust and unholy war." Ibid,, September 28, 1861.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 255
great interest of free labor true to Republican principles." 5
If, then, the southern states insisted upon a disruption of the
union in violation of the fundamental laws upon which the con-
stitutional superstructure of the nation had been built, repub-
licans would plant themselves upon Andrew Jackson ground
and exhaust every resource for the enforcement of the laws.
They made it clear that they understood that the constitution
did not and could not operate directly upon the states; " it has
to do with the people with individuals." 6 "The Union, ^
it must be preserved execute the laws," was the republican
rally cry.
In their rejection of compromise and concession these
republicans were prepared for a test of arms. " I am in favor
of 20 years of war," wrote one of Trumbull's correspondents,
" rather than the loss of one inch of territory or the surrender
of any principal \_sic\ that concedes the right of secession,
which is the disruption of the government." " Petitions are
circulating rapidly for a reorganization of the militia and
everybody is signing them " announced Horace White. " We
live in revolutionary times, and I say God bless the revolu-
tion!" 7
Republican leaders held council as to the course of action
required of them by the crisis. President-elect Lincoln took up
quarters at the governor's office in the statehouse and held
conferences in which were shaped the policy of constitutional
rights for the south without compromise. The Illinois delega-
tion at Washington promptly after the opening of the session
assembled and unanimously resolved that " the Union must and
shall be preserved." 8 Governor Yates, knowing that, as the
governor of Lincoln's state, his views would have a special
significance in the public mind, took counsel with men of wider
political experiences as to the content of the inaugural address.
5 Illinois State Journal, December 15, 1860; Chicago Tribune, November
8, 1860.
6 Ibid., December 20, 22, 29, 31, 1860. Gustave Koerner drew up an elabo-
rate article to prove that there could be no constitutional right of secession;
this was sent to the Missouri Democrat and widely circulated in the Illinois
press and in pamphlet form. Koerner, Memoirs, 2:108; Koerner to Trumbull,
December 10, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts.
7 W. H. Hanna to Trumbull, December 19, 1860, Horace White to Trumbull,
December 30, 1860, ibid.
6 Chicago Tribune, December 19, 1860.
256 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Entering on his duties as governor January 14, 1861, he
insisted in a lengthy address upon the perpetuity of the union
and declared that " the whole material of the government,
moral, political, and physical, if need be must be employed
to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United
States." Democrats and republicans, alike could not but believe
that the document, produced under the nose of the president-
elect, had a special significance in forecasting the policy that
would obtain with Lincoln's inauguration. 9
Compromise and concession found so few supporters in
republican circles that the ranks of the party were thrown
into consternation when news came from Washington that
early in January William Kellogg, member of congress from
the Peoria district, had introduced a compromise measure,
involving amendment of the constitution. Kellogg's lead was
bitterly denounced in public and in private by the controlling
element in the republican ranks ; and his followers, indignantly
repudiating the proposition, assembled in convention to read
him out of the party. To such republicans the word "com-
promise " soon became an " accursed " term which they re-
gretted had never been eliminated from the English language. 10
Although democrats were naturally more hospitable to the
idea of preserving the union by compromise, yet on January 16,
when a state convention met at Springfield to settle upon a
policy for the party to pursue, it was revealed that party leaders
were divided between advocates of strong union ground, fol-
lowers of Congressmen John A. McClernand and Isaac N.
Morris, and secession sympathizers like General James W.
Singleton. Six of the latter were given places on the resolutions
committee; the convention, however, agreed upon a platform
advocating any plan of conciliation and compromise by which
harmony might be restored, denying the constitutional right of
9 Yates to Trumbull, December 21, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts; House
Journal, 1861, p. 102; Joliet Signal, January 22, 1861.
10 Peoria Transcript, February 9, 1861; Joliet Signal, February 26, 1861;
Aurora Beacon, February 7, 1861; Illinois State Journal, June 24, 1861; J. H.
Smith to Trumbull, January 7, 1861; A. P. Bartlett to Trumbull, February 9,
1861, J. H. Gallatin to Trumbull, February n, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
President Sturtevant of Illinois College held that rather than sacrifice principle
to the union, it would be better that " the Union should be dissolved than made
such a Union as the South intends to make it." J. M. Sturtevant to Trumbull
January 30, 1861, ibid.
TFrom photograph in possession of Mr. Richard Yates, Springfield, Illinois]
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 257
secession, and urging the limitation of military authority to
the assistance of the civil authorities in the execution of the
law. Republicans interpreted this as " an echo of the false
and detestable position of southern traitors." Democrats,
however, declared that it followed their illustrious leader,
Stephen A. Douglas, in offering to concede and sacrifice
everything to save the union. 11
Senator Douglas, who had promptly joined the ranks of
the union men after the news of Lincoln's success and his
defeat, was laboring energetically to end the national crisis
by an appeal to the spirit of compromise; he urged all loyal
Americans to discard party lines and unite to save the country
from impending disasters. As member of the joint committee
of thirteen appointed to prepare measures of adjustment, he
not only supported the Crittenden compromise and all other
propositions based on the principle of mutual concession but
submitted a plan of his own applying the doctrine of non-
intervention and popular sovereignty. The republicans, on
the one hand, however, persisted in their firm adherence to
the Chicago platform while the secessionists, on the other,
showed a disposition to reject even the opportunity to dictate
all the terms that would enable them to continue within the
union.
A mass of secession problems came before the general
assembly when it convened on January 7. The state of Vir-
ginia had proposed the appointment of commissioners by the
several states to meet in convention at Washington to consult
about a peaceable settlement of the difficulties between the
states. Leading republicans held a series of caucuses to delib-
erate on this matter; Lincoln, who stood firm against any con-
cessions to the south, advised against any action by Illinois
which would suggest that the state desired any constitutional
changes. Even after Governor Yates was asked by the gover-
nors of Ohio and Indiana whether Illinois would appoint com-
missioners, Lincoln urged no action. " Lincoln said that he
would rather be hung by the neck till he was dead on the steps
11 Illinois State Register, January 17, 1861; Chicago Tribune, January 19,
1861 ; Rockford Register, January 26, 1861; Joliet Signal, January 22, 1861;
Koerner to Trumbull, January 21, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
of the Capitol before he would beg or buy a peaceful inaugura-
tion." 12 Finally it became evident that provision for sending
commissioners was a matter of political necessity "because if
we had not united to do so, some of our knock kneed brethren
would have united with the democracy, and would have given
them sufficient strength to have carried the resolutions appoint-
ing by the General Assembly." Lincoln and Yates both
opposed the step but, once taken, Yates gave the appoint-
ments, mostly of persons named by Lincoln, to ex-Gov-
ernor John Wood of Quincy, Judge Stephen T. Logan
of Springfield, Gustave Koerner of Belleville, and Congress-
man B. C. Cook of Ottawa and Thomas Turner of Free-
port. 13
Another proposition growing out of the disunion crisis was
the organization of the state militia. Governor Wood, the
successor to the unexpired term of Governor Bissell who had
died in office in March of 1860, called attention to this need
before turning the reins of office over to Governor Yates. The
state could not then boast any efficient militia organization; a
people loaded with the bounties and blessings of long continued
peace had seen no occasion for diverting energy into either
martial spirit or organization. Not more than thirty com-
panies existed with any regular organization under the state
law for the supply of arms to militia companies. Their occa-
sional drills were "held more for exercise and amusement
than from any sense of duty to the State." The young men
who, during the campaign of 1860, had swelled the ranks of
the Wide Awakes, the Douglas Invincibles, and other organi-
* zations of a political character had received a more valuable
training than the military companies. 14
In the face of a general demand that now arose for the
reorganization of the militia and the full arming of the state,
many democrats assumed a hostile attitude. "As Democrats,
12 W. Jayne to Trumbull, January 21, 28, 31, 1861 ; W. H. Herndon to
Trumbull, January 27, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
13 E. Peck to Trumbull, February 2, 1861, W. Jayne to Trumbull, February
i, 1861, ibid. Joseph Gillespie of Edwardsville led the fight for compromise
within the republican ranks. N. B. Judd to Trumbull, January 17, 1861, ibid.;
Ottawa Free Trader, January 26, 1861 ; Koerner, Memoirs, 2: 113.
14 "Annual Report of the Adjutant General, January i, 1863," Reports
General Assembly, 1863, 1:467; Chicago Tribune, January 3, 1861.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 259
we claim exemption from service in this Black Republican
war," declared the Joliet Signal, January 15, 1861. "Let the
Black Republicans of Illinois do the training, and fighting if
necessary, for it was their party that brought the calamity
upon the country. We trust that the Democratic members of
our Legislature will vote against arming and drilling our people
to prepare for murdering and butchering their Southern breth-
ren." As a result of this democratic opposition, combined with
the prevailing uncertainty, no effective legislative action was
taken by the general assembly.
The legislature set to work upon arrangements for the
constitutional convention ordered by the people at the last
election and for the reapportionment of legislative districts
which also required attention. The republicans hoped to per-
petuate through reapportionment the supremacy won in the
legislative victory of 1860 but were not nearly as enthusiastic
as the democrats about a new constitution which might disturb
the fruits of that victory. The two propositions, therefore,
went through together as mutually counteractive, the democrats
choosing to believe, after protracted filibustering, that, how-
ever infamous the apportionment bill might be, there would
never be an election under it. 15 The assembly also formally
ratified the decision of the people in favor of the reelection
of Trumbull to his seat in the United States senate, and the
docket was cleared for the new problems that might arise when
the republican president-elect should take his seat.
On a brisk bright day, March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln,
the first Illinoisian to enter the White House at Washington,
was inducted into the presidential office. Lincoln's inaugural
address was an emphatic declaration of the duty of the presi-
dent to maintain the supremacy of the laws against all resis-
tance, in the same spirit in which "Old Hickory" had met
the nullifiers in 1832. Douglas promptly designated it as a
declaration of war and prepared to lead a factious opposition
to the new administration. 16 Less than six weeks later, how-
ever, the secessionists at Charleston challenged the federal mili-
tary authority at Fort Sumter and, in compelling the garrison
15 Ottawa Free Trader, January 26, 1861.
16 Koerner, Memoirs, 2: 118.
260
to haul down the flag, precipitated the bloody civil struggle
which had been so long impending.
The day of compromise was now clearly over; here was
evidence that all the labors of the peacemakers had gone for
nought. President Lincoln sent out a clarion call for defenders
of the union that ended much of the futile discussion and wran-
gling between the leaders of the two parties in the north.
Senator Douglas was one of the first to respond to the leader-
ship of his lifelong rival; with Lincoln's call for seventy-five
thousand troops came the announcement that Douglas had for-
mally agreed " to sustain the President in the exercise of all his
Constitutional functions, to preserve the Union, maintain the
government, and defend the Federal capital." 17 Personal pol-
icy was subordinated to the public safety; with obligations to
his country paramount to those of his party, the partisan had
been sunk in the patriot. Having rallied a large band of
prominent "war democrats" around the administration, he
confronted a serious defection in the southern counties of his
own state and hurried off with Lincoln's blessing to secure the
loyalty of this stronghold of democracy.
Early in February signs had pointed to the danger that
traitors might become numerous in southern Illinois. Republi-
can leaders, therefore, advised against the establishment of a
federal court at Cairo, where the union forces would not have
sufficient strength and influence to convict the most flagrant*
disloyalist. 18 The governor was informed of the growing
strength of the disunion feeling. Secret meetings were held
at various points; Pope county held an open mass meeting and
declared the right of secession, while a meeting at Marion,
Williamson county, on April 15, pledged itself to perform the
task of effecting a division of the state and to attach Egypt
to the southern confederacy. These resolutions were under-
stood to have received the approval of Congressman John
A. Logan, who was opposed to the coercion of the southern
states; a speech in which he compared the secessionists with
our forefathers struggling for liberty, was widely circulated.
It was generally believed in Egypt that W. H. Green, A. J.
17 Arnold, Life of Abraham Lincoln, 200-201.
18 James C. Conklin to Trumbull, February 12, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 261
Kuykendall, and other leading democrats were advocating
a secession of Egypt if matters developed as they predicted.
Ex-Governor John Reynolds sympathized strongly with the
confederate cause and was willing to pronounce before " God
and man, that the revolution in the South is the greatest demon-
stration of human greatness and grandeur that was ever
performed on the globe." 19
To end this situation Douglas directed all his energies.
Arriving at Springfield on April 25 he poured forth an elo-
quence which swept not only the assembled audience but pene-
trated to the farthest confines of the state. Frankly confessing
that his own mistakes had been made " in leaning too far to
the Southern section of the Union," he was in a position to
warn his old following against continuing to commit the same
errors. 20 Thus was he arousing the people of Illinois to the
defense of the government and of the flag, when a fatal illness
seized him and permanently silenced his eloquent pleas for the
union on the third of June, 1861.
By this time the response of the people evidenced itself in
the military preparations that were under way. Mass assem-
blages received with applause Lincoln's call for troops. A
countless number of recruits immediately offered their services
to the government, so that within a fortnight the governor
became " greatly embarrassed by the number of volunteers." 21
Governor Yates had replied to the fall of Sumter by issuing a
proclamation convening the legislature in special session. This
began on April 23 and in the following ten days its work was
rushed through. The drafts of new legislation had been pre-
19 Illinois State Journal, June 10, u, 18, 20, 1861; Cairo Democrat, Sep-
tember 25, October 2, 1866; Sha-wneetown Mercury and Harrisburg Chronicle
clipped in Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1861; ibid., September 18, 1861; Central
Illinois Gazette, June 19, 1861; Illinois State Register, June 19, iS6i. Logan
wrote to the editor of the Register, June 18, 1861, branding as a "lie" the
charge that he had brought forward and openly advocated a plan " to effect
the separation of southern Illinois from the remainder of the state and attach it
to the southern confederacy;" ibid., June 21, 1861. See also Jonesboro Gazette,
March 14, 1863 ; Congressional Globe, 36 congress, 2 session, 178-181 ; S. E.
Flannigan to Trumbull, April 9, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts; Belleville
Advocate, August 28, 1863.
20 Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas, 483-485.
21 Trumbull to J. R. Doolittle, April 27, 1861, Illinois State Historical
Society, Journal, 2:44. "Three regiments too many have already assembled
and thirteen regiments are pressing to get into service."
262 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
pared in the executive office with the advice of republican
leaders like Gustave Koerner and Senator Trumbull, the latter
having hurried home from Washington. A bond issue of two
millions was authorized to provide a war fund; the old obsolete
militia system was replaced by a new militia law which provided
for an elaborate organization; additional regiments were
authorized for state defense.
The forces raised in the state were distributed between the
district opposite St. Louis, with encampments at Alton and
Caseyville outside Illinoistown, and at Camp Defiance at Cairo.
A main purpose was to curb the spread of secession activities
throughout Egypt. Recruits from the southern counties were
joining the confederate forces and in some instances receiving
encouragement from democratic leaders who considered the
possibility of taking part in person in the raising of com-
panies. 22 The name of John A. Logan, who bitterly denounced
Douglas for the betrayal of the democracy, was used in the
interest of southern recruiting as late as June, 1861 ; but, finally
confronted by the alternative of committing political suicide
or of clearing up his position, he proceeded to Camp Yates to
discourse eloquently on "the duty of all patriots to sustain
the Government in its efforts to vindicate the Constitution." 23
Logan followed this up by joining the volunteer army; and
though secession activity continued in Egypt, the effect of his
leadership and that of McClernand, who had been a union
democrat from the start, was seen in the heavy enlistments
that in the summer of 1861 began through the southern
counties.
From the military point of view, the chief danger lay in
the uncertainty of the situation at St. Louis. Cairo, to be sure,
was the one point directly exposed to attack by the secession
forces; but a strong military force was stationed there under
Brigadier General Prentiss. 24 The secessionists, on the other
hand, were organizing in St. Louis and the danger was that
22 Joseph Medill to Trumbull, April 16, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
James D. Pulley, a member of the legislature was arrested on the charge of
enlisting men for the southern army. Illinois State Journal, June 5, 1861.
23 Ibid., June 18, 20, 1861 ; Illinois State Register, June 19, 1861; Koerner,
Memoirs, 2: 124, 134.
24 Trumbull to J. R. Doolittle, May 10, 16, 1861, Illinois State Historical
Society, Journal, 2:45-48.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 263
Missouri would be forced into secession by their armed
strength; with that state out of the union the problem of
defending- Illinois would be doubled. Illinois was almost
devoid of military equipment; but the federal arsenal at St.
Louis had an extensive supply, liable on account of inadequate
protection to fall into rebel hands. For that reason 21,000
stands of arms and supplies were stealthily transferred
one night to the possession of the state authorities of Illi-
nois. 25
Illinois cooperated in the western governors conference at
Cleveland early in May which memorialized the president to
create a department of the west, to establish rules for the stop-
ping of supplies to the south, and to emphasize military oper-
ations on the Ohio and Mississippi. Soon after the creation
of the western department, it was enlarged to include Illinois,
Indiana, and a part of Kentucky; as a result Illinois troops
were soon scattered over Missouri fighting to control that
state for the union. The Illinois authorities were next success-
ful in having General Harney, who though a union man was
a Virginia slaveholder, replaced in the command of the federal
forces at St. Louis by General Fremont.
By the summer of 1861 Illinois had a powerful force of
20,000 men in the field in addition to its heavy German enlist-
ment in Missouri regiments; with the Iowa, Minnesota, and
Wisconsin regiments drawn off for service in the east and those
of Indiana and Ohio in West Virginia, Illinois troops promised
to be the dominating factor in the reconquest of the Mississippi
valley. 26 This situation stimulated the ambitions of various
Illinoisians to secure commands over the state troops. Lincoln
had been so busy dispensing patronage to party leaders in gen-
eral that his own state had received little consideration. The
state administration, therefore, brought pressure to bear upon
Washington as a result of which John Pope, Grant, Hurlbut,
Prentiss, and McClernand received brigadier generalships.
The name of John M. Palmer was at first passed over, al-
though he received the recommendations of the state officials
25 Koerner to Trumbull, May 31, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts; Koerner
Memoirs, 2: 130-133.
26 John Pope to Trumbull, July 6, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
264 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
and of the congressional delegation; Senator Trumbull con-
sidered Palmer " one of the bravest & in my opinion the cool-
est, most sagacious & ablest of them, all." 27
From the start there was a good deal of the impatience for
results in the republican ranks, which as time went on made
for a serious misunderstanding between Illinois republican
leaders and President Lincoln. In particular there was sharp
criticism of the administration of the war department under
Secretary of War Cameron. Cameron, a Pennsylvania repub-
lican politician who had been a rival of Lincoln for the
republican presidential nomination, had been appointed to the
cabinet much against Lincoln's best judgment; Illinois leaders
had resented the appointment of Cameron as " a man who
could not obtain the votes of ten decent, sober, moral Repub-
licans for any office whatever." 28 The supposed inactivity of
the war department caused great disgust especially in view
of the situation in Missouri. The State Journal voicing this
impatience declared: "Our people venerate LAW next to
GOD, but they are restive under the restraining operations of
red tape. The idea of waiting for orders from Washington
to defend ourselves or protect our outraged Union brothers
in Missouri may not much longer be brooked." 29 Even the
disaster at Bull Run, resulting from the general popular
demand for action, did little to cool this ardor.
Another source of republican dissatisfaction in Illinois grew
out of the treatment received by General Fremont from the
national administration. Illinois was concentrating its atten-
tion upon the situation in the Mississippi valley and in par-
ticular upon Missouri where General Fremont had set to work
to organize an efficient army. Fremont, however, from the
outset was not given proper support by the administration ; and,
with limitations in the shape of a strong personal ambition and
a tendency to make important assignments to irresponsible and
dishonest subordinates, he rapidly widened the gap between
27 John Pope to Trumbull, June 16, 1861, John M. Palmer to Trumbull,
July 8, 1861, Trumbull to Lincoln, October i, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
28 Koerner, Memoirs, 2:114; William H. Herndon to Trumbull, January
27, 1861, William Butler to Trumbull, February 7, 1861, W. B. Plato to
Trumbull, March 29, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
29 Illinois State Journal, May 17, 30, 1861 ; Canton Weekly Register, May
14, July 23, 1861.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 265
himself and the Washington authorities. 30 When in the late
summer Fremont issued a proclamation declaring martial law
in Missouri and authorizing the confiscation of the property
of the rebels and the emancipation of their slaves, Lincoln
instructed Fremont to withdraw the proclamation and upon
the latter's refusal, the president as commander-in-chief for-
mally annulled Fremont's action. Illinoisians, however, gen-
erally felt that Fremont had shown himself equal to the
emergency. Lincoln's disallowing order was roundly de-
nounced. Many did not hesitate to declare Fremont right
and Lincoln wrong. 31
It was obvious that a serious breach had developed between
the president and the western commander ; yet republican sym-
pathies were with the latter rather than with the Illinois states-
man in the White House. In September the report gained
currency that General Fremont had been superseded. The
editor of the Rock River Democrat described his feelings with
utter frankness: "We felt like ripping and tearing things gen-
erally; in fact, we felt like saying, let the government go to
smash if it has done so foolish a thing It is the
settled conviction of the people of the West that Gen. Fremont is
just the right man in the right place, and is promptly and rightly
doing his duty, and if the Administration desires to outrage
that sentiment it can find no surer way to do it than by super-
seding Gen. Fremont." 32 When finally early in November
the government did act to remove Fremont on the ground of
incompetence, recklessness, and extravagance, a howl of indig-
nation went up from the republican camp. Senator Trumbull
had protested to Lincoln against the failure of the administra-
tion to give Fremont a proper support. Gustave Koerner, the
German republican leader, claimed that there was universal
satisfaction with General Fremont at St. Louis and that the
policy of the administration was "outrageous;" "the admin-
istration has lost immensely in the Northwest," he declared.
30 Trumbull to J. R. Doolittle, August 31, 1861, Illinois State Historical
Society, Journal, 2:48-49; Trumbull to Lincoln, October i, 1861, Trumbull manu-
scripts; E. B. Washburne to S. P. Chase, October 31, 1861, Chase manuscripts.
31 Joliet Signal, September 3, 10, 1861 ; W. Kitchell to Trumbull, December
10, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
32 Rock Riiter Democrat, September 17, 1861; Rockford Republican, October
17, November 7, 1861.
266 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Only from the democrats did the president receive a warm
indorsement of his course; from the rankest copperhead sheets,
even, came the assertion that the president deserved the praise
of every honest union man. 33
The first winter of the war came on with the deepest gloom
prevailing among the staunchest union men of the west. Grant
had led the Twenty-first Illinois into Missouri to participate
in the expulsion of the rebels from that state and soon won
promotion to the rank of brigadier general. He had next
been assigned to the command of all the troops of southeastern
Missouri and southern Illinois which included the management
of the great depot recently established at Cairo, his headquar-
ters. On November 7, 1861, in order to make a diversion to
prevent a junction of two confederate forces, he led 3,000 men
into the jaws of death at the battle of Belmont. Grant suc-
ceeded in effecting his main purpose but, after carrying the
strong confederate position against great odds he was com-
pelled to withdraw his raw troops among whom he maintained
order with great difficulty. The withdrawal seemed an igno-
minious flight to many disappointed union critics upon whom the
heavy union losses in dead, wounded, and prisoners had a most
depressing effect.
Coincident with the news of the battle of Belmont came
the returns of the November election. As in the case of the
municipal elections in the spring, the telegraph told of demo-
cratic victories. This, too, was in spite of the appeal made
by administration backers during the summer months to sink
partyism in patriotism. " If we understand the matter rightly,"
declared the State Journal, " there are no parties. We are all
for the Union, for the preservation of the government and for
the speedy suppression of the rebellion." It had been argued
that the amendment of the state constitution was an important
work to be delegated only to leaders " able to rise superior to
the excitements of feeling and exacerbations of passion that
govern the labors of weak men." The democratic press re-
sented such appeals, pointed to the instances where the repub-
33 Trumbull to Lincoln, October i, 1861, Koerner to Trumbull, November 18,
1861, Trumbull manuscripts; Cairo Gazette, November 7, 1861; Jonesboro
Gazette, November 9, 1861 ; Ottawa Free Trader, December 28, 1861.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 267
licans failed to carry these principles into practice, and rallied
all democrats to their party candidates. The election, in which
democratic candidates won out not only in the southern counties
but also in Cook, Will, La Salle, Peoria, and other northern
districts, was interpreted as proof that the people were opposed
to the formation of a new union party. " If anything has been
revealed by the election," declared the State Register, " it is the
fact the people are beginning to discover that the democratic
party is the only true Union party;" at any rate the election
seemed to insure the framing of " a sound Democratic
Constitution." 34
Did the election indicate that the citizens of Illinois, pro-
tected in their private opinions by the secrecy of the ballot box,
were unwilling to set their seal of approval upon the attempt
to hold the southern states in the union by force? This was a
question that no one dared to raise. It could not be denied
that the convention movement had been taken up by the people
in 1860 under republican auspices and that a year later repub-
lican leadership had been rejected. Nor was there indisputable
evidence either of the republican claim that their strength had
been undermined by heavy enlistments or of the democratic
charge that "the corruption, usurpation, and villainy" of
republican officials had caused the revolution in political senti-
ment. 35 Forty-five democrats, twenty-one republicans, seven
" fusionists," and two members classed as doubtful composed
the body which, according to republican comment, was con-
trolled by the rebel elements in Illinois politics. " Secession
is deeper and stronger here than you have any idea," reported
Governor Yates after the body had assembled at Springfield
on January 7, 1862. " Its advocates are numerous and power-
ful, and respectable." 36
The convention was organized under uncompromising
democratic officials, not one of whom hailed from the region
34 Illinois State Journal, August 2, 1861 ; Chicago Tribune, August 14, Sep-
tember 25, 1861; Illinois State Register, July 20, 27, November 15, 1861; Ottawa
Free Trader, August 24, 1861 ; Joliet Signal, September 17, 1861 ; Cairo Gazette,
November 14, 1861.
35 Illinois State Register, March 17, 1862.
36 He felt that the situation required the stationing of a regiment of well-
armed soldiers at Springfield. Yates to Trumbull, February 14, 1862, Koerner
to Trumbull, December 12, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
268 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
north of Springfield. This led many to suspect that Egypt
would attempt secession; to their surprise, however, the leaders
lacked courage to take any open anti-war stand. Judge H. K.
S. Omelveny's resolutions aggressively defining state rights
and a definite denial of the right of secession was adopted as
an item of the bill of rights. 37 They took pains also to make
provision for taking the vote of the soldiers in the camps on
the adoption or rejection of the constitution.
Not being committed to any very sweeping changes in the
constitution, the democrats saw in the convention an opportu-
nity to manipulate matters in the interest of party politics.
They canvassed the conduct of the republican administration
in war expenditures and showed that contracts had been let
without legal warrant and at rates much higher than the federal
government was paying for the same commodities. 38 An
investigation of the treatment of Illinois troops in the field
was authorized, but General James W. Singleton of the com-
mittee on military affairs returned a report vindicating Gov-
ernor Yates and Quartermaster Wood. The convention framed
an anti-bank provision and adopted a resolution instructing the
auditor not to issue in the meantime circulating paper to any
but specie-paying banks. A section was adopted, incorporating
into the organic law the Negro immigration prohibition of
1853. A partisan apportionment arrangement gave equal rep-
resentation to the smaller southern counties and attached small
republican counties to large democratic districts. The articles
on banks, admission of Negroes, and congressional apportion-
ment were to be submitted separately. A special election was
provided for to be held on the seventeenth of June so that in
the event of the adoption of the constitution an election of all
state officers could take place the following November. 39
All these propositions aroused the ire of the republicans.
They attacked the convention as an illegally organized body;
37 In a speech on April 19, 1861, Omelveny had advocated permission
for seceding states to retire peacefully. Illinois State Register, January 27,
1862; Illinois State Journal, March 3, 1862; Ottawa Weekly Republican, Jan-
uary ii, 1862; Chicago Tribune, January 10, 1862; Journal of the Constitu-
tional Convention, 1862, p. 72, 1076.
38 Illinois State Register, January 27, 1862.
39 See the proposed constitution in full, Journal of the Constitutional Con-
vention. 1862, p. 1072-1114.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 269
had it not, instead of accepting the oath to support the state
constitution as prescribed by the law providing for its call,
substituted the one taken by the convention of 1847? But the
democrats replied that the substitution had grown out of the
suggestion of Elliott Anthony, a republican member from Cook
county, because the body could not without absurdity support
that which it was its duty to amend, if not to wipe out alto-
gether. The effort was made to get the convention to adjourn
to a later date, if possible until January, 1863. The alleged
reason was that the people were too deeply engrossed in the
rebellion to give a proper consideration to the question of the
revision of the constitution. 40 The real motive was doubtless
fear lest the republican state administration might be ousted
in November, 1862. With the failure of these devices the
republicans allowed the convention to drag out its work under
protest, assuming that the people would dispose of the product
as it deserved. When, therefore, the convention adjourned on
March 24, the real fight began.
The republican press immediately assaulted the proposed
constitution as a partisan work, " the new democratic bantling."
It was grudgingly admitted by some that it contained provisions
of merit but it was declared that in general they had not
improved upon the document under which the state had pros-
pered for nearly fifteen years and which was in reality "good
enough;" 41 moreover, the transactions of the constitutional
convention "were ungrateful, unpatriotic and treacherous."
To the republicans the most dangerous feature of the consti-
tution was the apportionment of the legislature; should the
Egyptian minority rule the majority? " Shall the manufactur-
ing, agricultural and commercial interests of northern Illinois
be put into Egyptian bondage?" queried the Aurora Beacon.* 2
The new constitution with its provisions for increased sal-
aries and for new offices was charged with extravagantly
imposing new burdens on the taxpayers at a time when
40 Illinois State Register, February i, 17, March 3, 1862; Illinois State
Journal, February 18, 1862; Chicago Tribune, January 29, 1862; Rockford Reg-
ister, February i, 1862.
41 Ibid., March 29, 1862; Illinois State Journal, March 27, 1862; Ottawa
Weekly Republican, March 29, 1862.
42 Ibid., April 5, 1862; Aurora Beacon, April 24, 1862.
270 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
retrenchment was the order of the day. The bank and Negro
articles were roundly denounced. The document was sub-
mitted to a general overhauling: "the new constitution
. . . changes the entire order of things, and sets every-
thing afloat. We are satisfied under the present order of
things," was a typical republican criticism. 43 They called upon
the people "to reject the Constitution entirely, without regard
to its merits or demerits, as a rebuke to the Convention for its
officious intermeddling with the war, and its attempt to cast
odium upon the administration of Gov. Yates." 44
Almost all the corporations in the state joined the repub-
licans in this war on the new constitution. Not only did the
document openly defy the banking interests but also the Illinois
Central railroad, which was forever bound by article IV to
the payment to the state of the seven per cent of its earnings
agreed upon in its charter. Associated capital in general was
aroused by the provision that " all laws enacted after the
adoption of this Constitution, which create corporations, amend
existing charters, or grant special or exclusive privileges to indi-
viduals, shall be subject to alteration, amendment or repeal." 45
The democrats tried to rally voters to the support of the
constitution as a document in the interests of the people rather
than of corporate privilege. They charged its opponents with
having been "bought up" by the corporations, particularly
the Illinois Central. John Wentworth, the Chicago republican
leader, "the friend of the laboring people" and the opponent
of banks, corporations, and special privileges, took the stump
in favor of the new constitution. 46 Other republicans announced
that they intended to support the document as a whole, while
rejecting certain of the articles submitted separately.
The state officials from Governor Yates down set busily
at work in a rousing campaign against the new constitution;
speakers of both party antecedents were put into the field,
from Owen Lovejoy representing the strongest antislavery
43 Aurora Beacon, May 8, 1862.
44 Havana Battle Axe clipped in Illinois State Journal, April 4, 1862.
45 Journal of the Constitutional Convention, 1862, p. 1082 ; St. Louis Re-
publican clipped in Belleville Democrat, April 5, 1862.
46 Joliet Signal, May 6, 13, 1862; Illinois State Register, May 8, 1862. Went-
worth had become estranged from the " state house clique " at Springfield, see
Trumbull manuscripts.
THE APPEAL TO ARMS 271
republicanism to John Reynolds, the incarnation of old demo-
cratic conservatism. They effectively played up in Egypt the
bugaboo of increased taxes; and as the contest neared its close,
they dragged out the bloody head and raw bones of treason in
a sentimental appeal to the partiotism of the voters of the state.
Every band of traitors in the state, they said, was working
for this humbug constitution, this Vallandigham document.
"Why is it that every rebel sympathizer in Illinois is open
mouthed for the adoption of the new Constitution?" asked the
Illinois State Journal on the day before election. " Down
with the Secession Constitution," was the caption of the edito-
rial in which the Chicago Tribune gave a final warning on
election day. 47
The commissioners appointed to take the vote of the
Illinois troops outside of Illinois began their work early in
April. With two regiments in Virginia, others on the remotest
borders of Arkansas, besides the forces stationed in Missouri,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, this was no small task. Early reports
that the soldiers were going for the constitution caused con-
siderable alarm; shortly, however, the returns went heavily
against adoption. Sentiment throughout the state became in-
creasingly hostile. Election day brought out a heavy vote
except in Egypt where the fear of increased taxes and the
charge of disloyalty rendered many democrats indifferent. 48
With a majority of 16,051 against ratification the work of the
constitutional convention was rejected. The taking of the
soldiers' vote was not completed until well into the summer
but added substantially to this majority. The articles pro-
hibiting banking and the congressional apportionment were
rejected by much smaller majorities while the sections pro-
hibiting the settlement of Negroes and mulattoes in the state
and prohibiting them from voting were carried by the over-
whelming majorities of 107, 650 and 176,271 respectively. The
section requiring the legislature to pass laws carrying the pro-
visions of the last two sections into effect was ratified with a
majority of 154,524. On the basis of the returns Governor
"Illinois State Journal, June 16, 1862; Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1862.
48 Jonesboro Gazette, June 28, 1862. In eleven of the strongest demo-
cratic counties in Egypt the vote reflected a loss of nearly six thousand. Can-
ton Weekly Register, June 24, 1862; Chicago Tribune, July n, 1862.
272 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Yates in August issued a proclamation announcing the rejection
of the constitution. 49 This defeat was to prove but the begin-
ning of a growing democratic discomfiture in state politics.
49 Election returns from the secretary of state's office; Illinois State Journal,
August 5, 1 6, 1862.
XII. RECRUITING GROUND AND BATTLEFIELD
TO THE call to arms Illinois responded with an enthusiasm
that suggested the important part she was to play in fight-
ing the battles of the union. Early in 1861 attempts had been
made by the legislature to prepare the state for the civil strife
that was impending. Governor Yates then called attention
to the collapse of the militia system and to the failure of uni-
versal conscriptive enrollment which other states had discarded
for voluntary organizations. In spite of a theoretical enroll-
ment of all able-bodied males, the state could marshal less
than 800 uniformed militia, with less than 200 serviceable
muskets to represent the $300,000 outlay that the federal gov-
ernment had issued to the state. 1 Yet the legislature hesitated
to raise the issue of militia reconstruction at a time when it was
hoped that the south might be pacified if its tender feelings
about coercion should not be offended. Democratic assembly-
men from the southern counties called attention to the serious-
ness of the situation. William H. Green of Massac county
suggested that his constituents " like a wall of fire " would
oppose any attempt to invade the north; but "if the North
were marched upon the South, her forces would be met on the
prairies and made to march over the dead bodies of the men
who people them." The senate, therefore, held up the bill
for the reorganization of the militia Richard J. Oglesby,
chairman of the committee in charge, remarking that when the
necessity should arise " the whole country, having the love of
the Union at heart, would rise en masse, and, disregarding
the hindrances of a militia law, volunteer their services
to the proper authority of the State speedily and without
delay." 2
1 Reports General Assembly, 1861, 1:10-11; 1865, 1:21; cf. Senate Journal,
1861, p. 26.
2 See debate in Chicago Tribune, January 12, 1861; cf. repoit in Illinois
State Register, January 14, 1861.
273
274 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
When the news from Sumter was received on April 15
Governor Yates promptly issued a proclamation calling for
six thousand troops to fill the government requisition. In less
than five days volunteers in excess of the quota had reported
for duty, sixty-two companies having been offered to the
governor. Mass meetings were called in many communities;
the need of defending the union was eloquently placed before
the assembled populace; and, after the speaking, volunteers
for a local company were enrolled and the officers elected.
Competition was keen between rival communities and com-
peting officers, and the rush to recruiting stations was general.
The first call, therefore, resulted in the organization of
six regiments. The legislature summoned in special session
responded to the further recommendations of the governor
by appropriating $3,500,000 $1,000,000 for organizing
and equipping ten new regiments, $500,000 for purchasing
arms and building a powder magazine, and $2,000,000 for
general purposes of state defense while an extra regiment
of cavalry and four companies of artillery were also provided
for. By June all ten regiments had been accepted by the
national government, together with an additional regiment of
infantry (commanded by Colonel Hecker), a battalion of light
artillery, and one regiment of cavalry making nineteen regi-
ments in all. 3 Four other cavalry regiments were raised before
the disaster of Bull Run in July which spurred the state to
offer sixteen more regiments. Countless thousands of the lusty
sons of Illinois only awaited further recruiting, and dozens
o^ companies were tendered in anticipation of further requisi-
tions upon the state, while most of the three months men
reenlisted upon their return in August. So powerful was the
flood of recruits that for a time, in spite of strong pressure
on the war department, only one-fourth of the companies raised
could be accepted; several companies, besides numerous indi-
vidual recruits, therefore offered themselves to Missouri and
other states. 4 By the first of October forty-three regiments
were already in actual service, more than the state of New
3 Illinois State Register, April 20, 1861 ; Grant, Personal Memoirs, 1:230-
231; Illinois State Journal, May i, 8, 1861; Reports General Assembly, 1861,
i : 17-21.
4 Ottawa Free Trader, August 17, 1861.
RECRUITING GROUND 275
York had contributed, while enough men were enrolled in
regiments in process of formation to give the state a total of
nearly 70,000 troops. Before the end of the year Governor
Yates was able to report in service fifty-eight regiments of
infantry, eleven of cavalry, and eighteen companies of artillery,
enrolling a total of 60,000 men. 5 Two artillery regiments
supplied with James' rifled cannon were also accepted after
Governor Yates obtained an order from the war department
authorizing regimental organization. Although by the summer
of 1862 the secretary of war had refused to accept any more
batteries from Illinois, since it had more artillery companies in
the field than any other state, yet when the call came for addi-
tional regiments of infantry the response was not only prompt
but heavily in excess of the calculations of the war department.
During the summer of 1862 sixty-one regiments of infantry
were furnished together with two regiments of cavalry and
six batteries, in all sixty-five thousand men. This made a
total enlistment since the commencement of the war of nearly
135,000 men, divided between 125 regiments of infantry, 16
of cavalry, and 30 batteries. 6
The heavy enlistments of the late summer of 1862 may
be accounted for largely on the basis of the choice that was
to be offered between volunteering or being conscripted. In
the weeks following August 23, an enrollment of the entire
militia force of the state was made in case a draft to fill up
old regiments should be required. Meantime the republicans
of Illinois stoutly supported the stand taken by Senator Trum-
bull in favor of federal conscription. He pressed the bill in
congress against the opposition of the more timid and was
rewarded by witnessing its enactment on March 3, 1863. The
provost marshals and their assistants were soon at work pre-
paring the rolls and making arrangements for the drawing. It
was generally expected that the process of drafting would
commence promptly, but hundreds of companies were sworn
into service, and Illinois with volunteers far in excess of its
quota was relieved from the operation of the draft.
5 Illinois State Journal, December 14, 1861.
6 Ibid., September 13, 1862. The number on the muster rolls was 135,440.
Adjutant General of Illinois, Report, 1861-1866, 1:22.
276 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
The same goal of keeping ahead of her quota was adopted
by Illinois in the succeeding years of the war. Enlistment, with
reenlistment of veteran regiments, was sufficiently heavy to
delay the necessity of conscription. With a surplus of 8,151
under the draft quota, with an additional credit of 10,947 for
volunteers discovered in a reexamination of the rolls, and a
net credit of 4,373 from the 6,032 Illinois citizens enrolled in
Missouri regiments, recruiting placed Illinois on January I,
1 864, far in excess of the total quota under all calls of 145, ioo. 7
Preparations were again made in 1864 for heavy drafts.
The people of Illinois, flattered by previous reports, imme-
diately set out to maintain this record, spurred on at times by
warnings of the danger of conscription. In this way enlist-
ments kept well ahead of quotas, reaching an excess of nearly
35,000 in the summer of 1864. This was a noble record;
Governor Yates took just pride in the response to his energetic
efforts to have Illinois take her full part in fighting the battles
of the union. 8 When finally the south was crushed and the
war record of Illinois was surveyed, it was found that the state
had furnished under various periods of service over one-quarter
of a million men. 9
Great credit for the proud record which Illinois made dur-
7 Adjutant General of Illinois, Report, 1861-1866, 1:30. Eight hundred and
forty-eight Illinoisians were found in the Eleventh Missouri infantry and 670 in
the First Missouri cavalry, Illinois State Journal, January 6, 1864; Chicago Times,
January 6, 1864. Proclamation of Governor Yates, February i, and report of
Adjutant General Allen C. Fuller, February i, Illinois State Journal, February
10, 17, 1864; Adjutant General of Illinois, Report, 1861-1866, 1:29-32. In the
closing months of 1863 Adjutant General Allen C. Fuller thought he detected a
disposition to hold back recruiting and incite the draft " as a good thing to have
in this state."
8 This excess, though large, was not sufficiently large to prevent some con-
scription under later calls. Only occasionally did a carping critic interpret the
excess as involving a neglect of the welfare of the people, " a wanton waste
of the lives and energies of the people of Illinois." Cairo Democrat, July 3, 1864.
9 Chicago Tribune, September 14, 1864, October 20, 1866. Two hundred and
twenty-five thousand and three hundred troops were enrolled in 150 infantry
regiments, 17 cavalry regiments, and 33 batteries. This did not include
Illinoisians enlisted in or recruited for the regular army, or in other organi-
zations without the state, nor did it include colored troops. Provost Marshal
General Fry of the war department on September 2, 1865, reported a total of
256,297 men furnished by Illinois without reference to periods of service, which
varied from three months to three years. The total credit for the state on
December 31, 1865, was 226,592 as against a total quota of 231,448. Adjutant
General of Illinois, Report, 1861-1866, 1:157, 216; 8:777 & War department
statistics published in the newspapers in 1866 placed the total figures at 258,277
and 279,006. Chicago Tribune, October 20, November 20, 1866.
RECRUITING GROUND 277
ing this great national crisis is due to the aggressive leadership
of her zealous and industrious commander-in-chief, Governor
Richard Yates. His face was grimly set against the southern
threats of disunion and when the test came he summoned forth
with his eloquence the resources of the state of Illinois. Anxious
to crush out the dread specter of disunion, he chafed under the
caution exercised by the central government " If I were Lin-
coln," he impatiently stated in February, 1862, "I would lead
enough of the Potomac army to take Richmond and this
though Washington could not be saved I would march to
victory or death Washington is nothing, if we remain an
unconquered people with our institutions safe." 10 He was
inclined to feel that, while he asked no credit from Lincoln
for having gotten up the great Illinois army, the state did not
receive full justice from the Washington authorities. Accord-
ingly, on July 1 1 of that year, simultaneous with his response
to Lincoln's new call for three hundred thousand, Yates sent
an open letter to Lincoln demanding " the adoption of more
decisive measures," the end of mild and conciliatory means to
recall the rebels to their allegiance, and " greater vigor and
earnestness" in military movements. "In any event," he
declared, " Illinois, already alive with beat of drum and
resounding with the tramp of new recruits, will respond to
your call. Adopt this policy and she will leap like a flaming
giant into the fight." ll
So martial was the spirit instilled in the souls of peace-
loving Illinoisians by stirring appeals to rally to the colors!
War mass meetings were held in every village and town to
encourage enlistments; subscriptions were taken to aid pros-
pective recruits in making the decision; funds were raised to
contribute to the relief of the families of volunteers; boards
of supervisors and city authorities were called upon to offer
bounties in addition to those held out by the general govern-
ment. Recruits held back to see what bounties would be offered
and where they would be most generously rewarded for enlist-
ment. After a succession of increases Rockford volunteers in
10 Yates to Trumbull, February 14, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
11 Reports General Assembly, 1865, 1:15-16; Eddy, Patriotism of Illinois,
i : 124.
278 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
1864 received a bounty of $400 from the city and county
authorities. Sixty-nine counties alone had an expenditure of
$15,307,074 for bounties in aid of raising troops. 12 The pos-
sibility of a state bonus even came up for discussion. In the
closing months of the war taxpayers began to groan under
the burden caused by these bounties. Special prizes were
offered by local merchants and manufacturers, and draftees
who were men of means were induced to pay the $300 fee,
by which they could purchase exemption, to substitutes who
would enlist in their behalf. 13 Funds were also raised to
contribute to the relief of the families of volunteers.
The great spur to enlistment, however, was the desire to
avoid the enforcement of the draft. This whip was held over
the able-bodied men of the state, and arrangements were made
repeatedly for the application of the law. In the summer of
1862 the draft seemed so near at hand that a rush for Canada
was only checked by the requirement that traveling could be
done only under passes issued by deputy marshals. 14 The
democrats condemned the conscription law and challenged its
constitutionality; they found special fault with the provision
making possible exemption for those paying a fee of $300.
The Chicago Tribune, which had originally defended this sec-
tion as one essentially making for democracy, came to admit
that " if the $300 clause is the poor man's fund we don't think
they see it." 15 From the winter of 18631864 to the end of
the war it seemed that the lottery of life and death would be
drawn at almost any time; draft protection associations were
organized in almost every community to raise funds to procure
substitutes for members who might be drafted. The draft was
actually ordered and the wheel set in motion in the fourth and
12 Rockford Democrat, August 24, 29, 1864; Ottawa Free Trader, July 26,
1862; Adjutant General of Illinois, Report, 1861-1866, 1:137.
13 The Chicago Board of Trade in July, 1863, raised $15,000 bounty money
and recruited a full company of artillery in forty-eight hours; besides this Board
of Trade battery, two Board of Trade regiments, the Seventy-second and the
Eighty-eighth, were recruited. The Chicago Mercantile Association organized
the Chicago Mercantile battery. Ibid., 1861-1866, 4:553, 5:259, 8:732.
14 Aurora Beacon, August 7, 1862; Ottawa Weekly Republican, August 23,
1862.
15 Chicago Tribune, March 3, 1862, December 25, 1863. Three hundred
thousand names were drawn in one instance and all but twenty-five thousand
escaped, mainly under this clause.
RECRUITING GROUND 279
tenth districts in October, 1864, and in most districts in March,
1865, when the order arrived in April to stop the draft and
recruiting in Illinois. 16 Thus it happened that recruiting in
Illinois involved a quota of only 3,538 draft men.
Strangely enough, the most satisfactory response to appeals
for enlistment came from the democratic counties in southern
Illinois. True, there had at first prevailed a disposition to
regard the contest as an aggressive war on the part of a new
president and therefore a corresponding reluctance to take up
arms ; but, the war having become a reality, the feeling grew
among the people of Egypt that they had to " see the thing
through." Even under the first call, the Cairo district in the
extreme southern end of the state offered more companies than
could be received. When in the summer of 1861 John A.
Logan, "the little Egyptian giant," tendered his services to
the stars and stripes, following the lead of John A. McCIer-
nand, who had already become a brigadier general, the tide
was turned in favor of the union; the response to Logan's call
for a regiment to follow him was immediate. Henceforth,
Egypt, following the advice of the lamented Douglas, was
tendering troops not by companies but by regiments; it not
only filled its quotas but usually piled up a surplus. On the
first of October, 1863, the ten extreme southern counties
were officially credited with an excess of nearly fifty per cent.
Old democratic strongholds charged with copperheadism,
offered recruits with a generosity that shamed their oppo-
nents. 17
Among the Illinois regiments were many representing select
groups; they reflected the fact that the responsibility for early
recruiting was assumed by individuals civilians who rallied
about them, fellow-workers, friends, and neighbors. Certain
regiments consisted almost entirely of countrymen and farmers;
16 Rockford Register, January 28, 1865; Ottawa Free Trader, February 4,
1865; Cairo Democrat, February 22, 1865; Illinois State Journal, April 15, 1865.
17 Ibid., May 15, 1861; Illinois State Register, August 19, 1861; Jonesboro
Gazette, August 31, 1861, October n, 1862; Belleville Democrat, August 30,
1862, January 23, 1864; Cairo Democrat, February 12, 1864. Within four months
Alexander county, with a voting population of 1,047, including only a hundred
(106) republicans, furnished seven companies; Union county in eighteen months
furnished nineteen companies out of a voting population of 2,030, including but
157 republicans. At the same time Massac county had contributed five-sixths of
its voting population.
280 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the State Agricultural Society undertook in 1862 the organi-
zation of an entire brigade. 18 Railroad men at the same time
took up the work of organizing another brigade; the Chicago
railway battalion was part of the response in 1862 to the
president's call for three hundred thousand more men. Early
in the war Colonel C. E. Hovey, president of Illinois State
Normal University, raised the "Normal regiment," to a very
large degree composed of school teachers and advanced stu-
dents, and he was soon seeking authority to expand it into a
brigade. "The high intelligence and social cultivation which
prevails among the privates makes discipline an easy task,
while the pride of character & esprit du corps which is a matter
of course among such men, will make them a very superior
and effective regiment," wrote one of his captains. 19 Reverend
B. C. Ward, the congregational pastor at Geneseo, raised a
company of one hundred young ministers of the gospel " not
for Chaplains, but to stand up for Christ on the field of
battle ;" it was incorporated, however, in a Missouri regiment.
A project for a temperance regiment was set on foot with the
idea of eliminating the demoralizing influences to which soldiers
were exposed in camp. 20
The adopted citizens in Illinois made an important con-
tribution toward winning the battles of the Civil War. The
Germans around Belleville responded enthusiastically from
the start; a company was immediately organized by Augustus
Mersy, a veteran officer of the Baden army of the German
revolution of 1848, who promptly became lieutenant colonel.
Friedrich Hecker, who had at first enlisted in Franz Sigel's
Missouri regiment as a private, was given authority to raise
an independent regiment, so that the Twenty-fourth Illinois
infantry became known as the " Hecker regiment." 21 With the
return of the three months men in July, Koerner offered to raise
18 Illinois State Journal, August 16, 22, 1862 ; K. K. Jones to Trumbull,
May 22, 1861, Trumbull to Governor Yates, September 27, 1861, Trumbull
manuscripts.
19 C. E. Lippincott to Trumbull, December 22, 1861, January 8, 1862, ibid.;
Belleville Democrat, August 17, 1861.
20 Rockford Register, September 28, 1861 ; Joliet Signal, October 8, 1861;
Illinois State Journal, August 2, 1862.
21 Koerner, Memoirs, 2: 150-151. A second " Hecker's regiment," the Eighty-
second, was recruited later in the war.
RECRUITING GROUND 281
two German regiments, officered by men of experience. After
considerable delay Governor Yates gave Koerner the neces-
sary authority to raise one independent regiment, which was
recruited in a few weeks and placed under the command of
Colonel Julius Raith. This was the Forty-third infantry, or
" Koerner regiment." 22 Many German recruits of that region
joined Missouri German regiments, because of the failure of
their leaders to secure prompt organization for exclusive Ger-
man regiments. Companies were also organized in Springfield,
Ottawa, and elsewhere, while the Chicago Jaegers, the Turner
Cadets, and the Lincoln Rifles were ready from the start for
incorporation in the union army. The Thirteenth cavalry
regiment was the "German guides," organized at Chicago in
December, 1861. Within a sixmonth, it was estimated that
6,000 Germans from Illinois were in the federal army. 23 This
stream kept up during the war; it was possible as late as 1864
to recruit a German regiment in Chicago and vicinity. The
Irish were not to be outdone. In a week's time they organized
in Chicago the Twenty-third Illinois, otherwise called the Irish
brigade, which was accepted as an independent regiment under
Colonel James A. Mulligan. Irish companies from Springfield
and Rockford also tendered their services. The following
year the "Cameron guards" were recruited at the capital,
while the " Ryan guards " from Galena and other companies
were being organized for a Chicago regiment. The " Irish
Legion," the Nineteenth infantry, was mustered into service at
Chicago in the late summer of 1862. During the first two
years of the war two so-called " Scotch regiments," the Twelfth
and Sixty-fifth, were organized. 24 Even the Israelites of Chi-
cago were aroused; in 1862 within forty-eight hours they
raised a company together with a fund of several thousand
dollars to put it in the field. The Portuguese in Springfield
and in Morgan county enrolled large numbers in the companies
recruited in those regions.
The idea of using Negro troops had long been urged upon
22 Koerner to Trumbull, July 24, 29, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts; Koerner,
Memoirs, 2: 161-165.
23 Rockford Republican, October 10, 1861.
24 The synonyms comprising the local names of military organizations are
listed in Adjutant General of Illinois, Report, 1861-1866, 1:217-223.
282 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the national administration by Governor Yates and Senator
Trumbull, and in the fall of 1863 the first Illinois regiment of
Negro soldiers was finally authorized by the war department.
Before this a colored company had been started in Galesburg,
and recruits had been secured from Illinois for Rhode Island
and Massachusetts organizations; a state wide canvass was
now inaugurated which brought together five hundred recruits
at Quincy in February, 1864. But failure to give them the
same pay and bounty that was paid to white soldiers prevented
Negro enthusiasm from developing; as a result less than
two thousand colored troops were mustered into service and
these naturally played little part in the fighting of this
war. 25
Back of the serried battalions that marched forth from
Illinois there rallied legions of loyal women to minister to
the physical and moral well-being of the fighters in the field.
Nimble hands were set to work manufacturing the flags and
uniforms with which the volunteer companies were outfitted.
The scraping of lint and making of bandages was started at a
rate that promised an oversupply; energies were thereupon
partially transferred to the making of flannel shirts, drawers,
socks, and other articles of clothing. The needs of the sick
and wounded soldiers and of families left without support in
nearly every community were met by local soldiers aid socie-
ties; an Illinois Soldiers' Relief Association was even organized
at Washington by the Illinois colony in that city. Sociables
and benefit concerts and performances were arranged as means
of raising funds for supplies; sanitary stores were collected,
funds were solicited from merchants, and farmers were induced
to bring in their surplus of fruits and vegetables in the summer
and wood in winter for the benefit of soldiers' families. In
1863 ladies union leagues began to spread all over the state.
Members of these organizations often ventured into new fields
of service, acting as substitutes for clerks who enlisted into
service, and in certain instances turning out in a body to plant
gardens and small farms in order to send the produce to the
25 Chicago Times, October 6, 1863; Rockford Register, November 7, 1863;
Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1866; Adjutant General of Illinois, Report, 1861-
1866, 8:777-810. The records at Washington list 1,811 colored troops from
Illinois.
RECRUITING GROUND 283
soldiers. 26 A soldiers' home at Chicago was maintained during
the later years of the war by the Ladies' War Committee;
46,284 arrivals were served during its first year. 27
Other agencies also responded to the heavy demands for
relief. Wealthy citizens and men in the workshops subscribed
to funds for the support of the families of volunteers; the
physicians of Decatur pledged their services without compen-
sation. 28 County boards of supervisors and common councils in
the cities designated certain funds for this work. Toward the
end of 1863 the relief movement came to be organized more
systematically: the Freemen's Aid Society changed its field
of operations to that of supplying the wants of soldiers' fami-
lies, while a movement was started to raise a fund for the
maintenance and education of the children made orphans by
the war. 29 There were various projects for orphans' homes
which in 1867 culminated in the establishment near Blooming-
ton of the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home.
Illinoisians also cooperated in the support of two nation
wide organizations which made substantial contributions to
the physical and moral health of the soldiers. These were the
United States Sanitary Commission and the United States
Christian Commission. The latter sought to provide every
soldier with a testament; it had stations in the army camps
and at Cairo, where it maintained reading and writing rooms
to counteract the contaminating and debasing tendencies of
camp life. 30 The Sanitary Commission was extremely efficient
in caring for the physical welfare of the soldiers. Governor
Yates urged the formation of sanitary associations in each
county to supply systematically such articles and funds as were
necessary for hospital work. In order to replenish the ex-
chequer of the Sanitary Commission, a great Northwestern
Fair was held on October 27, 1863, at Chicago, the receipts of
26 Illinois State Journal, May xi, 1861, July 18, 1862; Rockford Register,
May 21, October i, 1864; Rockford Democrat, December 15, 1864; Carthage
Republican, January 14, 21, 1864. A grand wood procession was arranged at
Carthage, which brought in eighty-eight loads of wood.
27 Chicago Times, June 18, 1864.
28 Illinois State Journal, April 19, 20, 23, 1861.
29 Ottawa Weekly Republican, December 5, 1863.
30 Cairo Democrat, February 9, May 8, 1864; United States Sanitary Com-
mission, Statement of the Objects and Methods of the Sanitary Commission,
284 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
which were about $60,000; a year later a State Sanitary Fair
was held at Decatur, and another Northwestern Fair arranged
for May i, i865. 31
The long casualty lists for Illinois created heavy demands
for hospital facilities. This problem, however, was handled
entirely without efficiency. Accommodations were provided
only when heavy losses on the battlefield called attention to
the need; this was especially true after the bloody battles of
Fort Donelson and Pittsburg Landing, after the struggle for
Vicksburg, and the battles about Chattanooga. Upon the
receipt of the news of the capture of Fort Donelson, the
constitutional convention assumed the unique responsibility
for appropriating a half million dollars for the relief of the
wounded; 32 and a year later the legislature set aside another
fund of $10,000. Governor Yates, however, in his zeal for
administering relief did not wait long for appropriations but
rushed aid to the battlefields. In the fall of 1864, when the
fighting in the Mississippi valley had practically come to an
end, 700 Illinois soldiers lay in the hospitals about Louisville,
1,000 in Nashville, 1,500 in Chattanooga, and 3,400 below
Chattanooga. In fallen heroes Illinois paid its toll to Mars:
5,857 were killed on the field of battle, 3,051 died of their
wounds, and 19,934 died from the ravages of disease. 33
With her vast levies of troops, Illinois was cast to play an
important role in the work of suppressing the southern con-
federacy; their logical and self-appointed task was first to
protect the state and then to carry out an offensive that would
drive the rebels from the Mississippi valley. Early in the
first summer Governor Yates secured for Illinois a fair repre-
sentation in the Grand Army of the East, but the general body
of troops remained in the department of the west.
Thirteen regiments, at first with no general officer in com-
31 Ottawa Weekly Republican, September 6, 1862; Chicago Tribune, January
16, October 28, 1863; Chicago Morning Post, October 30, 1863; Illinois State
Register, September 21, 1864; United States Sanitary Commission, Financial
Report from June, 1861, to October I, 1865; also What the Sanitary Commission
Is Doing in the Valley of the Mississippi.
32 Illinois State Journal, February 17, 1862; Illinois State Register, Feb-
ruary 19, 1862; Jonesboro Gazette, February 22, 1862.
33 Illinois State Journal, October 5, 1864; Chicago Tribune, October 20,
1866; Eddy, Patriotism of Illinois, 2:690. Higher figures are given in Bost,
Slavery and Secession in Illinois, 79; Moses, Illinois, 2:731.
RECRUITING GROUND 285
mand, were sent into Missouri to rid it of confederate troops.
When finally Grant, Hurlbut, Prentiss, McClernand, and later
Palmer were given their commissionjs as brigadier generals,
decisive operations in Missouri as elsewhere were long re-
strained by superior officers and frequent changes in commands.
General Fremont had been superseded in the department of
the west early in November by General Hunter, who in turn
ten days later yielded to General Halleck. In July, however,
Illinois troops under Colonel Franz Sigel had fought valiantly
against great odds at Carthage, and under General Lyons at
Wilson's Creek; a little later, after Grant relieved General
Prentiss at Cairo, his command faced the murderous confed-
erate fire at Belmont, suffered heavy losses, but thereby pre-
vented the junction of the confederate forces in Kentucky and
Missouri. But for most of this period the western army lay
idle, guarding railroad bridges, depots, engine-houses chafing
under their inactivity and reflecting the growing clamor at
home for a movement "on to Memphis and New Orleans."
General Palmer, complaining of the lack of progress, frankly
assigned the blame to the constant change of commanders and
to the prevalence in all armies of " Feather bed Generals, who
run the machine by Telegraph and trifle away time." 34
In the spring of 1862, however, more satisfactory results
were evidenced when the work of saving Missouri to the union
was completed, and the federal offensive began against the first
confederate line. On January 27, 1862, Lincoln as commander-
in-chief ordered the army and flotilla of armed river craft at
Cairo to advance a part of a general movement of the fed-
eral forces against the insurgents. The result was the capture
first of Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and later of Fort Donel-
son on the Cumberland river. The latter feat brought glory to
the Illinois troops who constituted a majority of the army
of 30,000 men led by General Grant. Back of this victory,
however, was the courage and heroism of any army that for
three days and nights fought on in the midst of rain and snow
and frost, without shelter and almost without food. Far-off
Maine could not restrain her admiration for the work of these
34 J. M. Palmer to Trumbull, February 3, 1862, Koerner to Trumbull,
January 2, 26, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
286 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL. WAR
brave volunteers; the governor and legislature of that state
formally extended their congratulations to the victors, singling
out the Illinois troops for special mention for their heroic
conduct. 35
This victory brought to Grant his first significant military
laurels. A West Pointer who had seen service in the Mexican
War and in the west, he had reentered civilian life and in the
crisis of 1860 was adjusting himself to the obscurity of a clerk-
ship in his father's leather business in Galena. Then, as a
Douglas democrat, he took the lead in the raising of a volun-
teer company at Galena and accompanied it to Springfield.
His appearance on that occasion was not "very prepossess-
ing;" "hardly of medium height, broad-shouldered and rather
short-necked, his features did not indicate any very high grade
of intellectuality." 36 His friends brought him to the notice
of Governor Yates and secured an appointment as assistant
quartermaster-general at two dollars a day. Soon his abilities
as a military commander began to evidence themselves and led
Governor Yates to assign him to the command of cantonments
at Springfield, at Mattoon, and at Anna. Later he in all
modesty accepted the colonelcy of the Twenty-first regiment;
on August 23, after two months of efficient service in the field,
he was promoted brigadier general with a commission dated
May 17. Now following the capture of Fort Donelson, Grant
received the rank of major general, his commission fitly dated
February 16, the date of the surrender of the fort. Already
his courage, his clearness of judgment, his knowledge of mili-
tary science and of men, his ability to command the confidence
of his subordinates had been demonstrated in a way that pre-
pared the minds of Illinoisians for his future achievements. 37
Simultaneously with Grant's movement against Fort Donel-
son, an expedition under General Pope moved down the Mis-
sissippi and captured the confederate positions of Island
Number 10. A general advance was then made on the next
confederate line from Memphis to Chattanooga; moving up
the Tennessee, Grant's army was suddenly attacked at Pitts-
35 Rockford Republican, February 20, 1862; see resolutions and letters of
Governor Washburne, Illinois State Journal, April 8, 1862.
38 Koerner, Memoirs, 2: 126.
3 7 Eddy, Patriotism of Illinois, i : 178-189.
RECRUITING GROUND 287
burg Landing, and the battle of Shiloh took place on April 6
and 7. Only the arrival of reinforcements saved the hard-
pressed union army, many officers of which charged General
Grant and General Sherman with negligence. " Good general-
ship would have saved us thousands- of valuable lives and have
carried our army in triumph into Corinth," declared one Illinois
officer. 38 John M. Palmer cursed the fates which brought the
calamitous losses to the union army: "No sadder day will I
hope ever come for Illinois than that sad Sunday when the
flower of her soldiers were decimated at Pittsburg unless the
day Grant was made a Brigadier General or that upon which
he was promoted may be regarded as more unfortunate." 39
Grant was in a measure superseded by General Halleck, who
assumed chief command for a time. Tales of Grant's addiction
to drink began to circulate in camp, but seemed to be founded
on small talk; 40 at any rate, the advance was successfully con-
tinued until Corinth was occupied, after which Memphis fell
into the hands of the union forces. The federal army followed
the retreating confederates, but operations were uneventful
until they pressed hard upon the defenses of Vicksburg. Illinois
troops to the number of about 20,000 accompanied Grant on
this expedition against Vicksburg, and 25,000 more were with
Rosecrans when he attacked Bragg at Murfreesboro on the
last day of 1862. In both expeditions the Illinoisians acquitted
themselves creditably and were in instances conspicuous for
their gallant behavior.
Illinois troops under able leadership were winning fame
everywhere. John A. Logan had a brilliant military career
and won promotion to a brigadier generalship. Even his old
republican antagonists supported the proposition to have him
advanced to the rank of major general; and, since Grant and
McClernand were rivals for the laurels of the Vicksburg cam-
paign, the military leadership of the Illinois troops was thus,
strangely enough, committed to democrats. 41 Party-minded
38 George T. Allen to Trumbull, April 25, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
3 9 John M. Palmer to Trumbull, April 24, 1862, ibid.; Koerner, Memoirs,
2:214-220.
40 George T. Allen to Trumbull, May n, June 7, 1862, Trumbull manu-
scripts.
41 H. McPike to Trumbull, February 23, 1863, ibid.; Koerner, Memoirs,
2 : 205-206.
288 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
republicans challenged their devotion to the cause and doubted
whether they possessed the stuff of which heroes are made, but
were not willing to claim altogether superior endowments for
their own leaders like gallant "Dick" Oglesby and General
Hurlbut.
The surrender of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863, after it had
been invested for months and repeatedly stormed with shot
and shell, opened the Mississippi throughout its entire length.
The capture was an undisputed victory for Grant; John A.
McClernand had been eliminated during the campaign, for
Grant, after severely criticizing his generalship, had relieved
him of his command. McClernand never admitted any culpa-
bility on his part and claimed that a grave injustice had been
done him ; restored by order of President Lincoln and assigned
to operations in Louisiana and Texas, he remained in the field
until the early part of 1864, when he resigned his commission,
claiming that he had been discriminated against in promotions. 42
Illinois troops had taken their full part in the task, assumed
at the outset of the war, of severing the confederacy along
the line of the Mississippi river; but their services did not
end there. Illinois regiments were an important factor in
the capture of Chattanooga by Rosecrans in September, 1863;
others marched with Grant a few weeks later to relieve the
beleaguered union army there and to establish federal control
in that region. Over seventy regiments then came under the
immediate command of General Grant, only to be transferred
to General Sherman when Grant was called to Washington to
assume, under the military title of lieutenant general, the com-
mand of all the armies of the United States.
Nor had the volunteer soldiers of Illinois been idle else-
where. Illinois regiments had participated in the Peninsular
campaign ; and they had met the enemy in the bloody battles
of Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellors-
ville. Illinois cavalry had taken conspicuous parts in the fight-
ing in the west and in Virginia, especially in April and May,
1863. The brilliant raid of the Sixth Illinois cavalry under
42 John A. McClernand to Trumbull, January 14, 1864, Trumbull manu-
scripts; see correspondence in War of the Rebellion, Official Records, series i,
volume 17, part 2, p. 555, volume 24, part i, p. 6, 169-186.
RECRUITING GROUND 289
Colonel Grierson from Tennessee through the states of Mis-
sissippi and Louisiana as far as Baton Rouge astounded the
rebel leaders, who saw the heart of the confederacy penetrated
for the first time. The Eighth and Twelfth cavalry regiments
tried to equal this exploit when in Stoneman's expedition they
dashed into the rear of Lee's army, within a few miles of Rich-
mond. 43 Illinoisians marched with Sherman " from Atlanta
to the sea " and northward through the seaboard states. They
backed up Grant in his "Wilderness campaign," steadily cut-
ting down the distance to Richmond. By land and sea they
operated in the department of the gulf under the command
of Major General Hurlbut to complete the conquest of the
lower Mississippi valley.
In the early months of 1865 they saw their efforts crowned
with success on every hand. The battle-scarred veterans of
the gulf poured into New Orleans with the well-earned laurels
of their campaign; Sherman's forces pressed on toward the
rear defenses of Richmond; while two regiments, the Thirty-
ninth infantry, or "Yates Phalanx," and the Twenty-third, or
" Irish Brigade," followed Grant into the streets of the con-
federate capital and were present at Lee's surrender at Appo-
mattox. When the shouts of victory began to subside, Illinois
was thrilled to learn that it was the silk flag of the Thirteenth
Illinois regiment, a rebel trophy rescued and hoisted by a
Massachusetts soldier, that was the first to proclaim the union
occupation of Richmond. 44
It was not long then before the regiments of war-weary
boys in blue, their flags emblazoned with deeds of glory on
scores of battlefields, began to return to their homes and peace-
ful callings. Glorious was the welcome which they received
from friends and loved ones whom they had left to serve their
country. Proudly did they recount exploits that brought honor
to their state. Yet no more eloquent testimony to devotion to
the union could have been offered than that which came from
silent battlefields consecrated by the blood of fallen heroes. 45
43 Rock River Democrat, May 13, 1863.
44 Illinois State Journal, May 23, 1865.
45 The Eighty-fifth regiment of Peoria, which had started out in 1862 nine
hundred strong to fight its way to Savannah and up to Richmond, returned with
three hundred and fifty men in the ranks. Ibid., June 17, 1865.
XIII. THE NEW ABOLITIONISTS AND THE
COPPERHEADS
FROM the time the first call went out for volunteers through
the years of fighting in the field President Lincoln wrestled
with the colossal task of preserving the federal union. With
unquestionable sincerity he grappled with the worst tangle of
problems ever confronted by an American executive and with
persistence, energy, self-control, and a high degree of tact,
prepared to carry the nation through its greatest crisis. It
was impossible, however, for his former associates in Illinois
to gauge the difficulty of his position; as they impatiently
awaited results which they felt ought to reveal themselves at
once, they turned to each other with the question: " Is it pos-
sible that Mr. Lincoln is getting scared?" 1
Within Illinois, as throughout the nation, the atmosphere
of war had generated a passion for freedom quite novel to
the sectional controversy; even before the clash of arms Wil-
liam H. Herndon had demanded that slavery be met boldly
and extinguished. "Liberty & Slavery," he declared, "are
absolute antagonisms; and all human experience all human
philosophy says 'Clear the ring & let these natural foes
these eternal enemies now fight it out To separate them now
is murderous to the men women & children of the future.' " 2
Another Illinois republican had urged that the southern states
be warned that in seceding and relinquishing their equality in
the union, they would fall back " into territorial pupillage
again," subject to the right of congress to prohibit or abolish
slavery in the territories a state suicide theory older than
the war itself. 3 This suggestion furnished a way of striking
directly at the institution of slavery; many who had been
1 William Butler to Trumbull, March 14, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
2 W. H. Herndon to Trumbull, December 21, 1860, ibid.
8 W. B. Slaughter to Trumbull, February 15, 1861, ibid.
290
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 291
extremely conservative on the question of slavery had come
to feel that, while the point in dispute was union v. rebellion,
slavery was at the bottom of the whole situation and that its
continued existence must become the real issue.
A line of cleavage appeared between the new abolitionists
and the conservative defenders of the union. Congress, under
conservative leadership, adopted the position presented by
John J. Crittenden of Kentucky that the war involved the
preservation of the union and not an interference with the
domestic institutions of any of the states; and Lincoln and
the Illinois congressional delegation excepting Senator Trum-
bull cooperated in giving the loyal slaveholders of the border
states this assurance. At the same time, however, " radical
republicans" in Illinois set up a plea for emancipation; they
demanded that the real issue be dragged into the light that
the battle cry of freedom be proclaimed.
The belief spread that the war would have to continue
until all the causes which produced it had been removed
slavery must be put in process of extinction. The Chicago
Tribune was busy preparing the public mind for the first step,
pointing out that, " every day the rebellion lasts increases the
probabilities that slavery will receive its death wound before
the struggle is ended." 4 When, however, democratic papers
protested against making the object of the war the extermi-
nation of slavery, the very journals that were working toward
emancipation denied categorically the existence of any such
danger; it was* shortly after such a denial that the Central
Illinois. Gazette, edited by a veteran abolitionist, urged that
" freedom should be proclaimed to all the sons* of Africa that
would fight on the side of the Government." 5
Just at this stage came the report of Fremont's proclama-
tion providing for the confiscation and emancipation of the
slaves of rebel planters in his military district. The news of
this action met with an outburst of applause on the part of
thousands of republicans, who welcomed it as an assault upon
the institution of slavery; even independent papers were able
4 Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1861; Central Illinois Gazette, June 26, 1861.
5 Ibid., July 24, August 28, 1861 ; Jonesboro Gazette, September 21, 1861;
Rock River Democrat, October 8, 1861 ; Ottawa Free Trader, October 19, 1861.
292 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
to indorse it, on the principle that a slave owner forfeited all
rights to protection of property when found in arms against
the government. 6 When the news of President Lincoln's dis-
allowing order followed, it brought bitter disappointment to
those who had thought that a long step forward had been
taken.
Although some Illinois republicans approved the presi-
dent's decision, the. great preponderance gave their support to
General Fremont's proclamation. The Rock River Democrat,
an opponent of a general emancipation policy, declared that
" the Proclamation had received the endorsement of the free
people of the West it was just the thing needed, and Fre-
mont was just the man to execute it. ... We believe
the principle enunciated in the Proclamation will yet have to
be adopted by the Government it is right, the magnitude of
the stake for which we are playing demands it, and we say
God speed the day." 7 John Russell, the Bluffdale educator,
in his disappointment, expressed the opinion that " the repudia-
tion by Mr. Lincoln of the clause of Fremont's Proclamation,
manumitting the slaves of Missouri rebels, gave more 'aid
and comfort to the enemy' in that state than if he had made
the rebel commander, Sterling Price, a present of fifty pieces
of rifled cannon." 8 The Germans of Chicago and of the
Belleville district, who had become noted for their zeal for
liberty and fundamental democracy, were especially strong in
their admiration for Fremont.
It seemed clear that Lincoln's policy was to preserve
slavery intact. This was extremely vexatious. William H.
Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, grew restive to the point of
declaring: "Good God! if I were Lincoln .... I
would declare that all slaves should be free. . . . What
does Lincoln suppose he can squelch out this rebellion while
he and the North in common are fighting for the status of
slavery? Good Heavens. What say you?" 9 Many felt con-
vinced that the government had " a higher and holier mission
to perform, than to lavish hundreds of millions of Treasure,
6 Ottawa Free Trader, October 19, 1861.
7 Rock River Democrat, September 24, October 8, 1861.
8 John Russell to Trumbull, December 17, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
9 W. H. Herndon to Trumbull, November 20, 1861, ibid.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 293
and to sacrifice tens of thousands of the lives of our noblest
young men, to see how strong it can hold a Traitor's negro
with one hand and how successfully it can fight his master with
the other." 10 More and more was the argument brought
forward that the abolition of slavery, a cancer which must
be cut out and cauterized, was the only remedy that could save
the union. "The South has made Slavery the issue," declared
the Central Illinois Gazette, November 27, 1861, "and Con-
gress must enable the people to throttle rebellion and break
its head with this ' bone of contention.' '
Lincoln, however, again placed himself in the way of fur-
ther progress. His first annual message to congress, on Decem-
ber 3, 1 86 1, took no advanced ground on the question of
emancipation; he contented himself with the suggestion that
the states might be allowed to confiscate the property of rebel
citizens and that congress might secure the forfeited slaves by
crediting their value against their tax quotas. 11 To the root
and branch abolitionist, which many republicans were fast
becoming, this seemed " one of the most unjust, & humiliating
propositions that could be conceived." 12 Disappointed Lin-
coln supporters voiced their sentiments in varied expressions
of regret, disgust, and even anger. The editors of the Chicago
Tribune condemned it as a piece of cowardice, "a horrible
fiasco" 13 The radicals, becoming more and more violent in
their hatred of the rebels and their cause, charged their bitter-
ness to the extreme mildness with which the "giant crime"
had been treated. 14
Better things, however, were expected of congress. There
Senator Trumbull, the author of the first confiscation act, led
the fight for another measure which would drastically extend
10 Shubal York to Trumbull, December 5, iS6i, W. Kitchell to Trumbull,
December 10, 1861, ibid. The Rockford Republican, June 24, 1862, objected to
this " playing war s " " with a tract in one hand and a rifle in the other," " for
the purpose of giving the black-hearted cut-throats and scoundrels of the
barbarous South a chance to repent."
11 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 6 : 54.
12 Grant Goodrich to Trumbull, December 5, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
13 C. D. Ray to Trumbull, December 6, 1861, ibid.
14 See Cole, " President Lincoln and the Illinois Radical Republicans,"
Mississippi Palley Historical Review, 4:422-423. One aggressive critic called
it " a tame, timid, time serving common place sort of an abortion of a Message,
cold enough with one breath to freeze h 11 over." Shubal York to Trumbull,
December 5, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts.
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
freedom to slaves of all persons resisting the union. The repub-
lican voters of Illinois rallied to Trumbull's support in spite
of the efforts of the democratic journals to arouse conservative
republicans to their duty of resisting "the plot of Trumbull,
Sumner, and Co." 15 Lincoln, in setting himself in opposition
to the step advocated by Trumbull, aroused the impatience of
those who felt that the administration was neglecting the very
means best calculated to hasten the suppression of the rebellion.
J. M. Sturtevant of Illinois College could not understand
Lincoln's position, while John Russell of Bluffdale boldly
denounced "the imbecility of President Lincoln," whom he
accused of having "done more to aid Secessia than Jefferson
Davis." 16
Oblivious to these criticisms, Lincoln continued his efforts
to attach the border slave states more securely to the union.
In a special message to congress on March 6, he recommended
the compensated emancipation of the slaves in the border
states and was able to secure from that body a joint resolu-
tion favorable to that policy. This almost unexpected recom-
mendation recognizing slavery as the cause of the rebellion
was as warmly welcomed by the republicans as it was deplored
by the democrats ; and when next Lincoln agreed to the aboli-
tion of slavery both in the District of Columbia and in the terri-
tories, he won more golden opinions. Those, however, more
thoroughly cognizant of his position on slavery found cause
for impatience; they chafed at his persistence in pressing till
midsummer the proposition for compensated emancipation and
were nettled at his reluctance, on account of certain " objection-
able " emancipation provisions, over signing the second con-
fiscation act. 17
Meantime, the pressure upon Lincoln in favor of some
general emancipation scheme began to have its influence. His
mind was already at work on this most serious problem of the
15 Illinois State Register, September n, 14, 21, December 15, 1861; Ottawa
Free Trader, January 25, 1861.
16 J. M. Sturtevant to Trumbull, December 28, 1861, John Russell to
Trumbull, February 4, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
17 Joliet Signal, March u, 1862; Chicago Tribune, March n, 1862; Writings
of Abraham Lincoln, 6:87-90, 94-99. He submitted his objections in the form
of a proposed veto message which he had originally intended to submit to hold
up this act.
/^L-^&^^i^i^T-/vT-*~siA-,
f
[From photograph in possession of Mr. L. C. Handy, Washington, D. C.]
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 295
war. Inclining more and more to the position recommended
by the radicals, he refused them the satisfaction of even a
hint as to the new policy he was considering. He gave them
no comfort when Governor Yates on July 1 1 formally
addressed him to urge that sterner measures be used against
the rebels. His reply to Greeley's plea for emancipation as
the prayer of twenty millions was a mere equivocal union-
saving pronunciamento. When, as late as September 13, 1862,
a delegation in behalf of a large meeting in Chicago presented
an address in favor of an emancipation proclamation, he replied
that, while the subject lay very near his heart, a decision was
difficult on account of the practical difficulties involved and
on account of the uncertainty as to the value of such a course
when entered upon. 18
The desire of certain republicans to see slavery put in
process of extinction was reenforced by practical political con-
siderations; they felt, indeed, that were emancipation post-
poned indefinitely, it would be fatal to the party. Discontent
raged within the union ranks; the radicals criticized the Lin-
coln administration for its caution, and the conservatives looked
askance at the steps leading toward emancipation. In the
intimacy of republican counsels, charges were passed of mis-
management of army contracts and incompetence in military
leadership. Members of the state administration complained
of being " tired of traitors from West Point." 19 Even General
Grant came in for his share of complaint. He was charged
by republican army officers with being intemperately devoted
to intoxicants. His abilities as a military leader were seriously
called into question. With so much uncertainty as to the
prowess of the federal armies and as to the political future
of the republican party, republican leaders regarded an eman-
cipation policy as the one clarifying agency; yet they con-
fronted the unanswered enigma : why did not Lincoln see this
and strike boldly?
It was probably only the irony of fate that during this
summer so full of disappointment and uncertainty for the rad-
18 Ibid., 6:123-124, 135-139; Illinois State Journal, September 17, 1862.
19 D. L. Phillips to Trumbull, March 22, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts. They
wanted to compel the democrats to " go before the people on the issue of
reenslaveme.nt." Joseph Medill to Trumbull, June 5, 1862, ibid.
296 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
icals Lincoln was developing his plan for the inauguration of
the very policy so insistently demanded by them. When, there-
fore, the battle of Antietam made possible the promulgation
of the preliminary emancipation proclamation on Septem-
ber 22, 1862, it was received with mingled feelings of surprise,
satisfaction, and relief. To some it came as a great act of
justice, wisdom, and mercy which would immortalize the name
of Abraham Lincoln and save the nation from destruction;
others regarded the delay as so serious that, while they rejoiced
at the actual course taken, only continued evidence of firmness,
self-assertion, and energy on the part of the president could
wipe out the disgrace of his protracted inaction.
It was Lincoln's expectation that in the congressional elec-
tions of 1862 the results of the emancipation proclamation
might reveal themselves as favorable to his general policy.
In Illinois, however, republicans had relaxed their efforts after
the defeat of the new constitution and looked with favor upon
the advice of prominent war democrats like John A. Logan,
I. N. Morris, John E. Detrich, A. J. Kuykendall, Washington
Cockle, and others that "party lines and partizan feelings
should be swallowed up in patriotism." 20 Republican leaders,
thereupon, arranged for the cooperation of all administration
backers in a union fusion party. They agreed that an extra
session of the legislature would be suicidal for the party, and
there was much reluctance about holding a state convention.
When finally a union convention did meet, Eben C. Ingersoll,
a war democrat from Peoria, was given the nomination for
congressman-at-large; and candidates representing both old
party affiliations were put in the field in the various districts.
The impression prevailed that the democratic party, as
such, was discredited. Old liners, like Richardson, James C.
Robinson, and Anthony L. Knapp, who had not joined the war
following, were consorting with Vallandigham, the notorious
Ohio copperhead; and the democratic state convention of Sep-
tember 10 brought out a scant attendance with one-third of
the counties entirely unrepresented. Yet in May, John A.
20 Illinois State Journal, August 20, 22, 23, September n, 24, October 13,
1862; Robert Smith to Gillespie, October 16, 1862, Gillespie manuscripts; Joseph
Medill to Trumbull, June 25, August 25, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 297
Logan's vacant seat in congress was filled by William Joshua
Allen, a peace democrat, who was elected over both another
peace advocate and Colonel Isham N. Haynie, a war demo-
crat. 21 The November election, moreover, resulted in a sweep-
ing democratic victory: the state ticket netted a majority of
14^000, the state legislature came completely under democratic
control, while James C. Allen, the democratic candidate for
congressman-at-large, was returned victor with eight of the
other thirteen members of the delegation. This triumph
assured the election of a democratic United States senator
to take the place of Senator O. H. Browning in Douglas'
seat.
The democrats waxed jubilant over these glad tidings.
"The party which triumphed two years ago in every Northern
State," proclaimed the Joliet Signed, November n, "and by
sectionalism and slavery agitation provoked secession in the
Southern States, and hurried us into a dreadful civil war, and
caused our land to be drenched with the blood of its citizens,
has been ignobly vanquished." More than this, the winners
interpreted it as the rout of abolitionism and as a proper
rebuke to the party that was trying to Africanize the north.
The voter had registered his reaction to the democratic charge
that the federal government was " seeking to inaugurate a
reign of terror in the loyal states by military arrests and trans-
portation to prisons out of the limits of these states, of citi-
zens, without a trial, to browbeat all opposition by villainous
and false charges of disloyalty against whole classes of patri-
otic citizens, to destroy all constitutional guaranties of free
speech, a free press, and the writ of 'habeas corpus.' " 22
Even the republican vote was not to be interpreted as an
indorsement of Lincoln's policies, for the main body of the
republicans was following the radical leadership of Senator
Trumbull and Governor Yates. Governor Yates had thrown
himself wholeheartedly into the struggle; and, disappointed
with the president's reluctance to adopt more radical policies,
he was inclined to question Lincoln's ability to lead the country
on to victory. Lyman Trumbull even publicly proclaimed the
21 Illinois State Journal, May 28, 1862.
?~ Illinois State Register, September 9, 1862,
298 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
incompetency of the administration. 23 This thoroughgoing
champion of freedom, to whom Lincoln had in 1855 graciously
yielded the senatorial laurels as a more conservative champion
of the antislavery cause, had now been transformed into a
leader of the radical republican following in congress. Trum-
bull was a man whose austere talents had little of that warmth
that attracts a large circle of friends, yet his intellectual leader-
ship and honesty, backed by a puritan conscience, won for him
a political following that was a silent but effective tribute to his
genius. As the author of the first confiscation act and as a
leading figure in every movement for the effective prosecution
of the war, every suggestion of his carried weight with those
who were shouting the battle cry of freedom.
Trumbull's correspondents unburdened to him their dis-
gust with the national administration. Lincoln seemed to place
too. much trust in conservative generals out of sympathy with
the methods best calculated to bring the rebellion to a speedy
close ; in his cabinet he listened too much to timid, incompetent,
and conservative advisors, like " Seward and proslavery Blair
and Bates." 24 Even after the definitive emancipation procla-
mation of January I, 1863, this dissatisfaction continued
though checked slightly by the July victories at Vicksburg and
Gettysburg.
Meantime the democrats proceeded to enjoy the logical
fruits of their victory. These were garnered in the legislative
session of 1863. First, Congressman William A. Richardson,
who had developed into a bitter opponent of the administra-
tion, was selected for the vacated seat in the United States
senate over Governor Yates, who had been given the compli-
mentary republican nomination. The democrats then devoted
their attention to their legislative program. Resolutions de-
nouncing the policy of the federal administration, urging an
armistice and a national convention at Louisville, in which
Stephen T. Logan, Samuel S. Marshall, H. K. S. Omelveny,
23 Chicago Times clipped in Illinois State Register, June 6, 1862; Yates to
Trumbull, February 14, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
24 T. Maple to Trumbull, December 28, 1862, Grant Goodrich to Trumbull,
January 31, 1863, ibid. Senator Browning was the only prominent repub-
lican to support the conservative middle ground taken by Lincoln, but he
was treated by republican organs as a renegade. Chicago Tribune, July 2,
18, 1862.
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ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 299
William C. Goudy, Anthony Thornton, John D. Caton were
named as commissioners, were pressed through the house and
were blocked in the senate only by the withdrawal of the repub-
lican minority. 25 This filibustering ended only after assur-
ances that the regular business of the legislature would be taken
up until disposed of; after the apportionment and appropria-
tion bills had been passed a recess was taken until June. Since
Governor Yates had vetoed the apportionment bill, the demo-
crats made their plans to pass it over his veto. A habeas corpus
bill to prevent illegal arrests, a bill to prevent the immigration
of Negroes, and resolutions reported by a joint committee on
federal relations were also to be taken up. Irritated beyond
endurance by his obstreperous opponents, Governor Yates
interposed to end the session by proroguing the legislature
the first time in the history of the state that a governor had
exercised this power. A vigorous protest against this action
was drawn up and signed by the democratic members, who
refused to recognize his authority; the house formally remained
in session for a fortnight. 26
While the democratic majority of the legislature was pro-
testing at its prorogation, there was held at Springfield, June
17, 1863, a democratic mass convention which, it was esti-
mated, brought together forty thousand enthusiastic anti-
administration democrats and their most influential leaders.
Following addresses by Senator Richardson, Congressmen S.
S. Marshall, James C. Robinson, J. R. Eden, J. C. Allen,
and other responsible democrats, resolutions were adopted
affirming the supremacy of the constitution in time of war as
well as of peace; condemning the violations of the bill of rights
by the national administration; pronouncing the action of Gov-
ernor Yates in proroguing the legislature an act of usurpation;
then, in the famous "twenty-third resolution" declaring that
as the " further offensive prosecution of this war tends to sub-
25 These resolutions also denounced " the ruinous heresy of secession "
and opposed recognition of the independence of the southern confederacy as
inconsistent with the interests of the great northwest. House Journal, 1863,
P- 373-375-
26 The question of the legality of Governor Yates' act was taken to the state
supreme court which, however, sustained the governor. Illinois Slate Journal,
June n, 1863; Illinois State Register, June u, 1863; Joliet Signal, June 30, 1863;
Chicago Times, October 30, November 7, 14, December 16, 25, 1863.
300 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
vert the constitution and the government, and entail upon this
Nation all the disastrous consequences of misrule and anarchy"
the convention was " in favor of peace upon the basis of a res-
toration of the Union " for the accomplishment of which it pro-
posed a national convention to settle upon the terms of peace. 27
This was the forerunner of a series of meetings in which
the democrats of Illinois voiced their desire for the restoration
of peace, and such meetings afforded republican leaders an
opportunity to exaggerate the animus of the democratic forces
in the state. It was easy enough to construe specific items in
the democratic indictment of administration policies as incon-
trovertible evidences of disloyalty. Lincoln's proclamation
was denounced in an imposing popular demonstration at Spring-
field as "unwarrantable in military as in civil law; a gigantic
usurpation, at once converting the war, professedly commenced
by the administration for the vindication of the authority of
the constitution, into a crusade for the sudden, unconditional
and violent liberation of three million slaves." 28 Democratic
journals insisted that the proclamation, in giving the south
something definite to fight for in place of an abstraction, had
caused the prolongation of the war; the Chicago Times sug-
gested that it was properly called a "war measure" as one
which would "protract the war indefinitely." 29 The conscrip-
tion bill of 1863 was vigorously opposed under the leadership
of Senator Richardson; in its enactment the democrats of Illi-
nois acquiesced mainly because their state had furnished
thousands of volunteers in excess of its quota.
Democrats, moreover, were unsparing in their denunciation
of the complete disregard of personal liberty evidenced in the
arbitrary arrest of critics of the administration, and in the
27 Moses, Illinois, 2:687-688; Illinois State Register, May 27, 29, 30, June
2, 4, 5, 18, 1863; Illinois State Journal, June 18, 1863; Ottawa Republican, June
18, 20, 1863; Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1863; Joliet Signal, June 23, 1863.
A resolution denied that the democratic party was wanting in sympathy for
the soldiers in the field; the evidence of the sincerity of this declaration, $47,400
was raised at the meeting by subscriptio'ns and pledges which Colonel W. R.
Morrison was directed to distribute in aid of sick and wounded Illinois
volunteers.
28 Illinois State Register, January 6, 1863 ; Illinois State Journal, January
7, 16, 1863; Jonesboro Gazette, January 10, 1863.
29 Chicago Times, September 24, 1863; Joliet Signal, March 24, 1863; Cairo
Democrat, September 20, 1863.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 301
denial of freedom of speech and of the press. In the late
summer of 1863 there took place a wide suspension under
executive order of the writ of habeas corpus, the one remain-
ing guarantee of personal liberty. 30 All administration sup-
porters, even, could not agree with the Illinois Staats-Zeitung
when it declared on April 19, 1862, that "Those who, in time
like the present talk of the right of habeas corpus, sympathize
with the rebels." The Chicago Times, October i, 1863, there-
fore assailed the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus as
" an act so bold, so flagrant, so unprecedented, and involving
to so great an extent the rights, the liberties, and even the lives
of the people, that its legality and propriety cannot be too thor-
oughly discussed." The Belleville Democrat, September 26,
1863, called it "the death of liberty;" it "makes the will of
Abraham Lincoln the supreme law of the land, and the people,
who have made him what he is, the mere slaves of his caprice."
Claiming that President Lincoln had finally surrendered him-
self to the radicals and that the subjugation of the south to
these radical policies was a practical impossibility, many began
to urge the termination of the war if necessary by a compro-
mise. The proposition for a peace conference at Louisville
received wide support; it was suggested as a necessary prelim-
inary that President Lincoln "with draw his unconstitutional
emancipation proclamation." 31
It was the task of administration officials to drive this oppo-
sition underground; but, since official action could not be thor-
ough, the leaders of public opinion took it upon themselves to
crush it by a skillful appeal to the patriotism of the masses.
In favorable locations champions were easily found to admin-
ister severe thrashings as a rebuke to the anti-war spokesman.
Neighbors who more quietly shared the same views left many
a loose-tongued critic of the government to his own defense
when some band of union regulators brought him to silence
by threats and intimidation, if not by physical violence. Vigi-
lance committees to hunt out and punish secession sympathizers
were organized against the advice of the more levelheaded; 32
30 Chicago Times, September 17, 19, 25, 1863.
31 Joliet Signal, April 14, 1863.
32 Chicago Tribune, April 24, 1861.
302 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
they soon made free speech a byword, so far as criticism of
governmental policy was concerned, and freedom of public
assembly an obsolete right. It was generally believed that only
such methods could hold back a flood of "copperheadism"
that threatened to engulf the union cause in Illinois.
Every democrat who did not openly and actively support
the administration and the war was labelled a venomous " cop-
perhead," at once a southern sympathizer and a traitor to the
union. At the beginning of the war, indeed, sympathy for the
south was very widespread; democratic papers in southern
Illinois had placed the blame for secession on the abolitionist
rather than the slavocrat. This feeling continued and was
often translated into action, varying from cheers for Jefferson
Davis to active aid for the rebel cause; military companies were
recruited to aid the south and prominent public men encour-
aged enlistment. A half dozen prominent democratic journals
boldly suggested the division of the state so that Egypt might
consider the possibility of joining the southern confederacy
William J. Allen, member of congress after 1862, openly pro-
posed this to John A. Logan, at the same time advising men
to go south to fight. 33
The most outspoken opposition to the government was
finally driven underground. By a system of wholesale arbi-
trary arrests, so offensive as to bring out protests from radical
republican legislators, like Senator Trumbull, and army officers
like General Palmer, the work of intimidating persons sus-
pected of disloyalty had been given a good start. Among the
victims of arbitrary arrests for disloyal practices were to be
found many persons who in the previous decade had taken a
prominent part in state politics. In September, 1862, Benja-
min Bond, United States marshal under Fillmore and a promi-
nent conservative, was arrested by Lincoln's appointee to the
same office. In the course of time other state prisoners were
rounded up, including W. J. Allen, member of congress, Judge
John H. Mulkey, Judge Andrew D. Duff, Judge C. H. Con-
stable, state senator William H. Green of Massac county, Levi
33 Canton Weekly Register, January 29, April 9, 1861 ; Central Illinois
Gazette, October 21, 1864; Illinois State Journal, July 30, 1862; J. H. Brown and
8. M. Thrift to Trumbull, May z6, 1862, Trumbull rnanuscripts,
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 303
D. Boon, an old democratic wheel horse, and M. Y. Johnson
and David Sheean, lawyers of Galena. 34 Several of these were
"honorably discharged" after weeks of confinement, not, how-
ever, without the taint in reputation that in the public mind
follows such treatment.
The suppression of opposition journals was attempted to
check unrestrained defiance of governmental policies; few
democratic editors followed the lead of James W. Sheahan
of the Chicago Morning Post in supporting the war policy of
the government without giving up the democratic point of view.
Certain vigorous critics like the Peoria Demokrat were denied
the privilege of the mails early in the war. 35 In July, 1862,
the circulation of the Quincy Herald in Missouri was forbidden
by military order on the assumption that it encouraged the
rebel bushwhackers. In the same summer the arrests of the
editor and publishers caused the temporary suspension of the
Paris Democratic Standard while the Bloomington Times office
was destroyed by a union mob. In December, John C. Doble-
bower, editor of the Jerseyville Democratic Union, fled to
escape arrest.
Early in 1863 the Chicago Board of Trade and Y. M.
C. A. started a boycott of the Chicago Times, and the Chicago
and Galena railroad for a time prohibited its sale on the com-
pany's trains. In February, General Hurlbut at Memphis,
and other post commanders forbade the circulation of the
Times within their respective districts. On June I, without
waiting to confer with the war department, General A. E. Burn-
side, in command of the department of the northwest, issued
general order number 84 which proclaimed the suppression of
34 J. M. Palmer to Trumbull, January 3, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts;
Koerner, Memoirs, 2:173; Senate Journal, 37 congress, i session, 40; White,
Life of Trumbull, 191-200. Both Sheean and Johnson, however, successfully
sued the federal marshal for arrest and false imprisonment, and Sheean was
soon elected mayor of Galena. Johnson's case was carried in 1867 to the
federal supreme court; the judges applied the principle of ex parte Milligan
and pronounced decisively against arbitrary arrests; the court referred the case
to jury trial in Jo Daviess county, where Johnson was awarded a judgment of
one thousand dollars and costs. Illinois State Register, January 28, 1863, July
15, 1867; Chicago Evening Journal, November 15, 1865; Chicago Tribune, July
9, 1867; Portrait and Biographical Album of Jo Daviess and Carroll Counties,
192-193, 206-211.
35 Rockford Register, October 19, 1861; Canton Weekly Register, October
22, 1861.
3 o 4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the Chicago Times and of the Jonesboro Gazette, " on account
of the repeated expression of disloyal and incendiary state-
ments." Before daybreak on June 3, a military detachment
from Camp Douglas took possession of the Times printing
establishment. Within a few hours a meeting of prominent
citizens of both political parties presided over by the mayor
unanimously agreed to request the president by telegraph to
rescind Burnside's order a request which was reenforced
by the personal solicitation of Senator Trumbull and Repre-
sentative I. N. Arnold of the Chicago district. The lower
house at Springfield simultaneously passed a resolution con-
demning the Burnside order. In Chicago that evening a mass
meeting of twenty thousand representative voters gathered and
enthusiastically resolved that the freedom of speech and of the
press should be upheld by the subordination of the military
power to the civil authority. The next day, while sixteen
carloads of soldiers from Springfield were on their way to
Chicago to handle the crisis there, President Lincoln responded
to the pressure of public opinion in Chicago by revoking the
order suppressing the Times. At Urbana the troops were
stopped by telegraph and informed of Lincoln's action, where-
upon General Burnside wisely recalled the whole order. 36
With that date official interference with freedom of the
press came to an end, and public opinion was left to do the
work of discouraging carping and disloyal criticism. One of
the most irritating critics of the administration was the Chester
Picket Guard, only a short distance from the military depot at
Cairo; in July, 1864, just after it had been refitted and fur-
nished with new presses, a mob of soldiers and civilians sacked
and completely destroyed the whole equipment. 37
The contemporary judgment of these cases of interference
with freedom of press may be found in the silent disapproval
voiced by subscribers to the persecuted journals; after its ill-
treatment the circulation of the Chicago Times increased
36 War of the Rebellion, Official Records, series i, volume 23, part 2, p. 381 ;
Illinois State Journal, February 14, 18, June 3, 6, 8, 1863 ; Illinois State Register,
June 3, 5, 10, 1863; Chicago Times, June 30, 1863; Writings of Lincoln, 6:306.
The Belleville Democrat, June 13, 1863, suggested that Lincoln's action alone
prevented civil war.
37 Cairo Democrat, April 9, July 30, 1864; Jonesboro Gazette, July 30, 1864;
Belleville Democrat, July 30, 1864; Chester Picket Guard, November 29, 1865.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 305
materially among the common people. Both war and peace
democrats, moreover, challenged the gross usurpation of power
by the military authorities and decried the recourse to mob
violence. Other champions of civil rights came from among
that body of spirited radicals who, while dissatisfied with the
slow progress that was being made against the south and
slavery, heartily disapproved interference. The State Journal
had in anticipation undertaken to declare as early as June 25,
1 86 1 : " Public men are, to a certain extent, public property, and
the people and the Press are free to praise or censure their
actions. We would never see this right abridged." 38
The justification for drastic action by individuals or by
government authorities was found in the so-called "crimes
of the copperheads," which terrorized not only individuals but
whole communities. They were so numerous and varied that
there was a fearful uncertainty as to when and how the cop-
perheads might next strike. Many carried on an active and
open propaganda to discourage enlistments and to obstruct the
operation of the conscription law the enrollment in prepara-
tion for the draft arousing widespread opposition. Fulton
county and vicinity had more than their share of draft troubles;
in June, 1863, the enrolling officers in certain districts were
driven off forcibly by armed mobs, and after repetitions of this
experience a military force was sent to protect the provost
marshal and his deputies. In spite of such protection, how-
ever, the draft resisters attacked the officers and in two
instances at least there were fatal shootings. Olney was for
three days besieged by a mob of 500 men, who threatened to
burn the town unless the enrollment lists were given up. 39
Another serious offense charged against the copperheads
was that of influencing desertion, which in the spring of 1863
became especially serious. Desertions were, indeed, the result
either of the advice and aid of relatives and friends, or of any
anti-war agency that stressed the view that this was an unholy
and anti-democratic war an attempt on the part of the " abo-
38 Illinois Slate Journal, June 25, 1861; Jonesboro Gazette, January 31, 1863.
39 Canton Weekly Register, June 29, 1863, October 31, 1864; Rushville
Times, May 13, 20, 1869; Evansville (Indiana) Journal clipped in Rockford
Register, August i. 1863; Biographical and Reminiscent History of Richland,
Clay, and Marion Counties, 422-423.
3 o6 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
litionists " to break down the democratic party. From June I
to October 10, 1863, 2,001 arrests were made in Illinois, and
in the three following months 800 deserters were apprehended.
By the end of the war there were 13,046 desertions of enlisted
men from Illinois. In January, 1863, following wholesale
desertions and fraternization with the rebels that assumed the
proportions of a mutiny the One hundred and ninth regiment,
recruited largely from the heart of Egypt, was arrested, dis-
armed, and placed under guard at Holly Springs, Mississippi.
The One hundred and twenty-eighth regiment at Cairo suf-
fered so heavily from desertions that there remained in March,
1863, only thirty-five men in the ranks. 40 Federal troops
detailed to arrest the numerous deserters in southern Illinois
counties often found themselves thwarted not only by the con-
cealment of the renegades but by the armed opposition of mobs
formed to prevent their arrest. In some instances backsliders
were rescued from the custody of officers; in other instances
they failed with a heavy loss in killed and wounded.
Armed resistance on the part of the anti-war forces was a
constant fear in the minds of union men. A heavy demand
for Colts' revolvers, guns, and ammunition was noticed by
storekeepers whose supplies were drained by buyers from cop-
perhead districts. Guerrilla bands, formed in the rural regions
of southern Illinois, conducted demonstrations in places as large
as Charleston, Jacksonville, and Vandalia; a band operating in
Union county destroyed property of loyal men and assaulted
unionists who fell in its hands. Armed rebel sympathizers
often met in numbers for military organization and drill.
Union men were seized and whipped and sometimes driven
from their homes; in numerous instances they were shot down,
even in their own homes, by rebel sympathizers. 41
40 Chicago Tribune, March 18, October 19, 1863, October 20, 1866; Belleville
Advocate, January i, 1864; Cairo Democrat, March 9, 1864; Halleck to Grant,
August n, 1864, War of the Rebellion, Official Records, series i, volume 42, part
2, p. 112; Illinois State Journal, January 12, 13, 15, 28, 29, February 3, 1863.
41 See list of murders in Illinois State Journal, February 8, 1864. General
Wright issued an order prohibiting the traffic in arms and ammunition in the
department of the Ohio. Ibid., March 31, 1863. Jacksonville Journal, March
19, September 17, 1863; Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1862, April 18, May 5, 1863.
Finally Jonesboro, the residence of a number of the marauders, and a town
with only three union men, was seized by federal troops who made a large
number of arrests.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 307
Many of these acts, it must be remembered, were done in a
spirit of retaliation for the lynch law visited upon more or less
harmless peace advocates. The latter, indeed, had at the start
the more ground for complaint against the outrages perpetrated
on them by the super-patriots of the day. The democrats com-
plained that Governor Yates had repeatedly condoned such
acts of violence; and as "the arch-criminal who has 'sowed
the wind'" they hoped for the sake of justice that he might
" reap the whirlwind." They invoked the law of reprisals
in their defense : having in vain counseled obedience to law
and an appeal to it for redress in all cases of lawlessness, they
felt that responsibility for having to organize for their own
protection and to make reprisals in kind, rested upon their
opponents. 42
In the closing years of the war this organized retaliation
became extremely serious. Gangs of bushwhackers from Mis-
souri, horse thieves and deserters from both armies swelled the
ranks of the copperhead desperadoes in the river counties and
for a long time threw all central and southern Illinois into a
panic. 43 Under the daring leader named Clingman one band
of armed guerrillas, largely clad in butternut clothing or in
gray rebel uniforms with white ribbons on their hats, did espe-
cial damage in the vicinity of Montgomery county until it was
broken up in the summer of 1864.
Edgar and Coles counties were the seats of especial dis-
turbances. On the outskirts of Paris a band of several hundred
insurgents had its rendezvous and terrorized the neighborhood.
In February, 1864, the town was threatened by attack until
federal forces came to its relief; even then armed clashes be-
tween the copperheads and the soldiers took place. 44 On
March 28, the storm broke loose in Charleston when a bloody
affray occurred between armed backers of Congressman J. R.
Eden and soldiers under Major York who were then on a fur-
lough; Major York and two union men were killed while two
copperheads met their death. The Fifty-fourth Illinois regi-
42 Chicago Times, March n, April 28, 1864.
43 Illinois State Register, May 31, 1863; Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1864;
Illinois State Journal, August 3, 1864; Cairo Morning News, January 12, 1865.
44 Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1864; Illinois State Journal, March 2, 5,
1864.
3 o8 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ment was promptly dispatched from Mattoon, and the
Forty-first Illinois and Forty-seventh Indiana followed as re-
enforcements. Although before their arrival the rioters had
disbanded, numerous arrests were made and the city and county
placed under martial law. For several days rumors circulated
that a force of ten hundred to twelve hundred insurgents had
collected outside the town, threatening to attack either Charles-
ton or Mattoon; Sheriff John O'Hair of Coles county and the
sheriff of Edgar county were said to be the ringleaders of the
conspiracy. The unionists of Charleston organized to prevent
a repetition of this experience, and little difficulty was expe-
rienced in this region for the remainder of the war. The
Charleston " riots," however, loom up as the worst example
of copperhead "outrages" in Illinois. 45
A secret political society known as the Knights of the
Golden Circle furnished the basis for unity of action by those
anti-war forces that preferred to work under cover. This was
originally an organization of young southern filibusters who
had purposed to invade Mexico in order finally to American-
ize and annex that republic; when first brought to the attention
of Illinoisians in the spring of 1860, the newspapers warned
adventuresome spirits against the "humbug." With the out-
break of the rebellion, however, it became the stronghold of
secession sympathizers; it found a foothold in Egypt where
conditions were most favorable and spread rapidly over the
state. 46 Chicago was said to have established a lodge in the
spring of 1861; the organization became a formidable factor
in the political life of every section of Illinois. The activities
of the various lodges remain obscured by the secrecy of meet-
45 Illinois State Journal, March 30, April i, 2, 4, 1864; Charleston Plain-
dealer, March 28, clipped in ibid., April 16, 1864; Chicago Tribune, March 29, 30,
31, 1864. The brother of Sheriff O'Hair and the son of the sheriff of Shelby county
were included in the list of prisoners arrested by the military. O'Hair was later
murdered in retaliation for the " Charleston murders." The Coles County
Ledger, a democratic paper, vigorously condemned the "votaries of Jeff Davis
and slavery," but the opposition papers throughout the state treated the incident
as a row between drunken citizens and drunken soldiers, which the union
men used for political capital. Chicago Times, April i, 1864; Joliet Signal,
April 5, 1864; Ottawa Free Trader, April 2, 1864; Carthage Republican, May 5,
1864; Cairo Democrat, June 26, 1864; Coles County Ledger clipped in Belleville
Advocate, April 15, 1864.
46 Cairo Gazette, April 5, 1860; the ritual may be found in The (Columbus,
Ohio) Crisis, December 30, 1863; Canton Weekly Register, May 21, 1861.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 309
ings protected by signs and passwords; evidence points, how-
ever, to an organization which covered anything from a dark
lantern democratic reorganization as an anti-war party to
actual constructive treason. In 1861, a number of persons in
southern Illinois arrested as Knights of the Golden Circle were
investigated before a commission appointed by Judge Samuel
H. Treat of the federal district court; the commission reported,
however, that membership in these organizations did not
involve treason to the United States. A further investigation
of the order followed the arrest of Congressman W. J. Allen
and Judges Duff and Mulkey in the summer of 1862. The
existence of the order and even the object of effecting the
reorganization of the democratic party could easily be proved;
but the charge that it was organized along military lines for
armed opposition to the government and its policies could not
be substantiated. A state convention or Grand Castle was held
in Chicago, August 4, 1863, with seventy-one counties repre-
sented but its secrecy was not penetrated; another state con-
vention met on March 4-8, 1864, after which the Chicago
Tribune published what purported to be the newly adopted
ritual of the order, but this, whatever its other points
of vulnerability, furnished no proof of treasonable inten-
tions. 47
In order to combat the anti-war propaganda of the Knights
of the Golden Circle, the unionists organized a secret oath-
bound political society of their own, known as the Union
League. The first Illinois council was formed at Pekin, Taze-
well county, on June 25, 1862; and the order was well under
way by the end of the summer when the first state convention
was held. In the following year the goal of a league in every
township was set up. Lists of names and residences of "cop-
perheads " were drawn up and sent to the league headquarters
at Springfield, and the order went forth that " the council must
be put on a war footing;" just what this meant was extremely
indefinite, although their opponents thought they found in
47 In December, 1861, ten thousand members were said to have been enrolled.
Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1861, August 26, 1862, March 27, 28, 1864;
Cairo Gazette, November 14, 1861 ; Belleville Advocate, September 5, 1862;
Illinois State Journal, August 27, 1862; Carbondale Times clipped in ibid.,
December 7, 1861.
310 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
shipments of government arms and equipment from Springfield
to local leagues an answer of civil war. 48
The Union Leaguers pointed ominously to a new danger
on the horizon, the danger of a revolt to effect the establishment
of a northwestern confederacy. This more dangerous venture
had apparently become the undertaking of the reorganized
Knights of the Golden Circle who had adopted the name of
Ancient Order of American Knights or Sons of Liberty. This
order, obviously political in its aims, was charged with arming
and organizing its members for a revolt to detach the north-
western states. How far this purpose was accepted in Illinois
is obscured by the secrecy of the methods of the day and by
the lapse of time; many democratic leaders undoubtedly did
believe in the desirability and inevitability of the detachment of
the west from its New England connections, but they were not
always prepared to secure this end through the work of secret
political orders. 49 In August, 1864, however, a band of alleged
conspirators was arrested; and when the trial was held at
Indianapolis, evidence was submitted that a conference had
been held at Chicago by a council of sixteen representing the
states of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky and, in
order to clear the way for an uprising, had formulated the
plan of overturning the governments of those states and releas-
ing the rebel prisoners at the prison camps. 50 These plans,
however, were not communicated to the body of the society;
and the wild rumors that, out of a membership of 100,000 in
Illinois, 40,000 or 50,000 armed knights stood ready to cooper-
ate with the confederate forces to overthrow federal control,
seem to have had little foundation in fact. When, moreover,
on November 8, during the excitement of election day,
copperhead leaders and confederate agents from Canada
attempted to release the nine thousand rebel prisoners at Camp
Douglas, they were thwarted and the so-called "rebel inva-
sion" or "Chicago conspiracy" ended with the arrest of a
48 Canton Weekly Register, April 20, 1863 ; the league ritual was published
in the March 23, 1863 issue. Belleville Democrat, February 20, 1864; Carthage
Republican, April 14, October 27, 1864.
49 Chicago Times, July 30, August i, 1864; St. Louis Democrat clipped in
Illinois State Journal, August 6, 1864; Jonesboro Gazette, January 3, 1863.
50 Illinois State Journal, November 2, 4, 8, 1864; Pitman, Indiana Treason
Trials; Ayer, The Great Treason Plot, 56 ff.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 311
half dozen alleged ringleaders. In the conspiracy trials at
Cincinnati the following spring, two of these, Buckner S. Mor-
ris and Vincent Marmaduke, were acquitted but the others,
including an English soldier, were convicted. 51 In this atmos-
phere of plot and counterplot, Illinois wrestled with the
nightmare of civil strife.
81 Chicago Tribune, November 8, 9, 1864, April 25, 1864; Chicago Times,
November 8, 9, 1864; Cairo Weekly Democrat, April 27, 1865; Atlantic Monthly,
16:108-120; Ayer, The Great Treason Plot, 163-171; Rhodes, History of the
United States, 5:324 ff.
XIV. THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN
time was rapidly drawing near when it was necessary
X to prepare for the elections of 1864. The heavy repub-
lican reverses of 1862 made the national political situation
extremely uncertain, while in Illinois the democratic victories
had been so sweeping that the republicans displayed consider-
able anxiety over the coming popular decision. The election
was to be a test of the success of the Lincoln administration;
yet, although it was logical for the republicans to name Lincoln
as their standard bearer, it was by no means certain that he
could lead their hosts to victory. While his success with diffi-
cult feats of political balancing compelled the admiration of
many who chose to travel along middle ground, there were
others who scorned his dispassionate efforts to maintain his
political equilibrium. Democratic obstructionists on the one
side and radical republicans on the other were convinced that
Lincoln possessed " neither consistency, statesmanship or reso-
lution; " the latter, however, could not subscribe to the partisan
charge that " even the claim set up for his honesty was abso-
lutely unfounded and that the country has never before been
afflicted with a ruler so absolutely destitute of integrity and
principles." 1
In handling the problems of civil war, President Lincoln
had assumed certain powers which made his role quite as sig-
nificant as that of a dictator in the days of Rome's glory.
Without legislative warrant and without precedent in American
history, he had suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus, one of the dearest of civil rights in the minds of the
American freeman. He had given at least indirect approval
to most arbitrary arrests at the direction of the secretaries of
state and war. Even Senator Trumbull, the radical, openly
condemned the imprisonment of citizens upon lettres de cachet
1 Illinois State Register, February 28, 1864, cf. February 13, 1864.
3*2
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 313
while General John M. Palmer declared that it would mean
the conversion of "this Constitutional Republic into a des-
potism." 2 There had been also arbitrary interference with
freedom of speech and of the press even outside the zone of
actual fighting, the responsibility of which Lincoln had to share.
By executive order he had undertaken to strike the shackles
from thousands of slaves and thus to destroy property rights
to the amount of millions of dollars, though slavery was recog-
nized, if not protected, under the constitution. He had recom-
mended and officially approved, March 3, 1863, a conscription
act which provided for compulsory military service by citizens
selected at the turn of a wheel. These were only the principal
features of a situation which made it possible for James Bryce
to say: "Abraham Lincoln wielded more authority than any
single Englishman has done since Oliver Cromwell."
These acts of the executive seemed indeed to involve infrac-
tions of the constitution, unless the war powers of the president
could be interpreted to cover them even their supporters
could justify them only under the plea of military necessity.
Here clearly was ground for wholesome and legitimate oppo-
sition on the part of the opponents of the administration, and
the democrats sought on this ground to rally round their stand-
ards the defenders of personal liberty. "There is hardly a
provision of the constitution which the President has not vio-
lated or treated with contempt," was the campaign slogan
announced by the Chicago Times. 3
The Cairo Democrat, July 14, 1864, took up the hue and
cry with less restraint: "When a President will thus put aside
the will of Congress, what are the people to expect from him?
The freedom of the press and the habeas corpus, the two great
bulwarks of our liberty, ruthlessly invaded. And last of all
the voice of the ballot box has been crushed, and 'military
necessity,' that bloody and envenomed queen, has seized upon
its holy precincts. Great Heavens ! how much more iniquity
will the freemen of America stand from the usurper and tyrant
2 John M. Palmer to Trumbull, January, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
See also Illinois State Register, June 6, 1863.
3 Chicago Times, February 22, 1864; Illinois State Register, February 28,
1864.
3 i4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
who is only fit to split rails." Democrats claimed that Lincoln
had taken these steps because, ambitious of reelection, he had
allowed himself to be coerced and had surrendered to the guid-
ance of the radicals. " Oh, Abraham," queried the tantalizing
critic, "why do you let the radical tribe always badger you
from three to five months, before they get you up to the
good work?" 4
While the democrats, on the one hand, were worrying
Lincoln with complaints of executive usurpation, he confronted
on the other the even greater problem of satisfying those of
his party who, without the responsibilities of his office, sought
to hurry things more rapidly along antislavery lines; chafing
at his slowness of action, they were not certain as to their
influence with the president and bitterly complained of the lack
of real aggressiveness in his endeavor to conquer the south.
Among the disgruntled in Illinois were leading republicans,
influential party organs, the state administration from Gover-
nor Yates down, together with Senator Trumbull and members
of the congressional delegation. Lincoln's friend Herndon
charged him with trying to put down the rebellion by squirting
rosewater at it, while Jonathan B. Turner, the Jacksonville
educator, condemned Lincoln for too much reading of the New
Testament instead of using the sword after the fashion of that
Old Testament saint, Andrew Jackson. 5
Other evidences of the republican party's lack of homo-
geneity were added to this clash between the antislavery element
and the conservatives ; survivals of the old alignment between
whig and democrat revealed themselves in mutual mistrust and
jealousy. Lincoln was charged with being too generous toward
his former whig associates; disappointed ex-democrats ques-
tioned the honesty and sincerity of their colleagues of whig
4 " We have a President, but he is merely a clerk for registering the decrees
of Secretary Chase," bewailed the Chicago Times, December n, 1863. "He is
as good an Abolitionist as the best of them, but the great trouble is, ' he is always
six months behind in acting the thing out.'" Cairo Democrat, January 3, 1864.
5 The editors of the Chicago Tribune were ready for a break with the
president if developments should require it. Browning was the only conserva-
tive Lincolnite and Joseph Medill claimed that he represented " only the secesh
of Illinois." See Medill to Trumbull, July 4, 1864, and other letters in Trum-
bull manuscripts; Cole, "Lincoln and the Illinois Radical Republicans," Mis-
sissippi Palley Historical Review, 4:430-431.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 315
origin. There was also the problem of the foreign vote ; could
concessions be made to it without stirring up opposition from
persons of nativist prejudices? To make matters even worse,
Lincoln's cabinet was a hotbed of bickering, suspicion, jealousy,
and rivalry; he could not secure the hearty support of a
majority of it on any fundamental proposition or policy. 6
Illinois republican leaders were baffled by the intricacies of
the whole situation. They recognized that Lincoln had secured
a strong claim to consideration by issuing his emancipation
proclamation. The Chicago Tribune, cautiously presented his
claims to reelection with the warning: "Just so surely as their
[the radicals] policy is abandoned by one who has been com-
mitted to it, . . . . just so sure will that one, thus guilty
and thus foolish, be trodden under their feet." 7 In general,
sentiment grew that the party could ill afford to refuse Lincoln
the nomination, although the radicals were loath to acquiesce
in the expediency of taking the lesser of two evils that
Lincoln might not win, but anyone else was even less likely to
succeed.
There was, however, little real enthusiasm for Lincoln.
Even in Washington, Senator Trumbull found that there was
" a distrust & fear that he is too undecided & inefficient to put
down the rebellion;" party leaders felt that if possible, some
other man "supposed to possess more energy" than Lincoln
ought to be nominated. 8 General Fremont had a considerable
following of ultra radicals; Chase was eagerly seeking sup-
porters to back his claims; other persons like Trumbull were
frequently mentioned as available. A group of prominent
republican senators and congressmen issued a pronunciamento
charging the responsibility for the failure to suppress the
rebellion on the president in whose ability to restore the union
it was declared "the people have lost all confidence." 9 "A
6 Secretary of the Treasury Chase became more and more independent and
having presidential aspirations of his own, finally left the cabinet. Diary of
Gideon Welles, 2:102, 106-107, 166.
7 Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1863. The Tribune concluded: "It is a
great historical fact that in revolutions the radical party always wins."
8 Trumbull to H. G. McPike, February 6, 1864, Trumbull manuscripts;
Washington correspondence of Chicago Times, January 13, 1864.
9 See Senator Pomeroy's circular in behalf of Chase, Chicago Times, Feb-
ruary 26, 1864; Illinois State Register, February 28, 1864.
3 i6 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
secret movement against Mr. Lincoln's renomination is ex-
tended all over the North," announced the Chicago Journal.
" We hear of its workings in New England, New York, Illinois,
Michigan, and Wisconsin. It has male and female traveling
agents, correspondents, popular lecturers and newspapers,
employed to promote its object." 10
German republican voters, many of whom were radicals
of the deepest dye, enthusiastically supported the claims of
Fremont, an old favorite. They grew steadily bolder in their
opposition to Lincoln and were encouraged by such papers as
the Missouri Democrat and the Chicago Telegraph. They
announced their inability to support Lincoln's reelection and
busied themselves with the organization of Fremont clubs. The
Illinois Staats-Zeitung, to be sure, did urge an indorsement of
Lincoln, but this was explained by the Fremont following as
accomplished by flattery and official favors. Through the col-
umns of the Mississippi Blatter many Germans announced their
loss of faith in Lincoln and declared their unwillingness to be
led or coaxed in the Lincoln camp. 11 The Highland Union, a.
German republican paper, hoisted the Fremont banner. The
Blatter, March 4, 1864, indorsed the sentiment of the Indiana
Freie Presse: "We cannot and dare not vote for Lincoln,
unless we are willing to participate in the betrayal of the repub-
lic, unless we are willing to remain for all future the most
despicable step-children of the nation."
This radical German opposition came to a focus in the
state convention on May 25, 1864. There Friedrich Hecker
led a futile fight against the instructions to support Lincoln.
The convention was divided into determined factions of Lin-
coln and Fremont men, although paradoxically called the union
state convention. The fact that it was far from a homogeneous
body was seized upon with relish by democratic opponents.
"It was literally what it purported to be a 'Union conven-
tion' an assemblage of incongruities," reported the State
Register. "United on no principle, but brought together by
the cohesive attraction of public plunder There
10 Chicago Journal clipped in Jacksonville Journal, March 10, 1864.
11 Chicago Times, February i, 13, March 28, May 3, 1864; Mississippi
Blatter, February 14, 1863, March 13, 20, April 10, 1864.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 317
was Jack Kuykendall and Jack Grimshaw Deacon Bross and
Deacon Haynie the life-time abolitionist and the quondam
Nebraska man disciples of Calhoun and followers of Garri-
son preachers and profanity The millenium is
coming, for we have seen the lion lie down with the lamb." 12
Even in this assemblage, however, the feeling grew that they
could not afford to refuse Lincoln the nomination; and, when
the committee on resolutions sought middle ground by com-
mending Lincoln's administration without, however, indors-
ing him for reelection, the resolutions were tabled and a new
committee appointed. Granting Lincoln's inavailability, yet
who offers greater ? was a question no one could answer. When,
therefore, resolutions damning Lincoln with faint praise and
instructing delegates to vote for him were finally presented,
they were, after a hot debate, adopted. 13
The disappointed radicals then took up the movement for
an independent nominating convention at Cleveland, a week
before the regular meeting at Baltimore; there John C. Fre-
mont and General John Cochrane were nominated as the true
champions of freedom and of the union. The Illinois delega-
tion largely represented the Germans; Ernest Pruessing was
honored by being made one of the vice presidents, while Caspar
Butz was a member of both the committee on permanent
organization and of the committee on resolutions. 14
The Cleveland convention cleared the republican ranks of
a large group of obstructionists. The situation was thereby
rendered more favorable for Lincoln's nomination at the regu-
lar republican, or union, convention at Baltimore on June 7.
Chase still canvassed his chances, and his followers did not give
up the field until an examination of the political situation at
Washington on the eve of the convention indicated the hope-
lessness of the contest 15 The delegates, catching the political
12 Illinois State Register, May 26, 1864; cf. Illinois State Journal, May 26,
1864.
13 See Joseph MedilPs personal explanation, Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1868.
14 Illinois State Journal, June i, 1864. Butz, who was leader of the rad-
ical Fremont forces in Illinois, had been publishing at Chicago the Deutsch-
Amerikanische Monatschefte, a journal on the plan of the Atlantic Monthly,
with anti-Lincoln editorial policy. Joliet Signal, March 15, 1864. Ernest Schmidt
as well as Butz and Pruessing signed one of the calls for the Cleveland conven-
tion. McPherson, Political History of the Rebellion, 410-411.
15 Diary of Gideon Welles, 2:44, 45.
318 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
drift at Washington, passed on to Baltimore where, acting out
of a sense of duty, they nominated Lincoln by acclamation but
without any display of real enthusiasm.
The Fremont-Lincoln imbroglio rent the membership of
the party. Lincoln's renomination was explained as the work
of the spoilsmen: officeholders and contractors. In vain did
the moderators praise the president and plead for union
and harmony. The democratic papers fanned the fires of
republican discontent by generous publicity for the Fremont
movement. 16
The republicans thus entered upon the campaign of 1864
under divided leadership. Nothing seemed to go satisfactorily
during the summer months. With blunders on the sea, with
failures in the land operations which in spite of a ruthless sacri-
fice of blood and treasure in Grant's attempted offensive,
exposed Washington to capture by a small hostile force, more
and more was said of the incompetency of the republican
administration. Congress even went so far as to ask the
president to set apart a day for fasting, humiliation, and
prayer; when the appointed day arrived, August 4, Secretary
of the Navy Welles soberly commented: "There is much
wretchedness and great humiliation in the land, and need of
earnest prayer." 17
The break between Lincoln and the radicals was widened
by conflicting views on the question of reconstruction. Repub-
lican leaders like Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Sumner held
that secession had destroyed the statehood of the southern
states which would have to accept the drastic jurisdiction which
congress was authorized to exercise over territories. The
" state suicide " theory found its advocates in Illinois, while
others believed that the south would have to be subjected to the
fate of conquered provinces. 18
18 Cairo Democrat, August 7, 9, 1864; cf. Chicago Times, June 6, 7, 9, 1864.
17 Diary of Gideon Welles, 2:93; Chicago Times, June 29, 1864.
18 See ante, 290; Chicago Tribune, October 3, 1863. One zealot proposed
that " South Carolina be confiscated entire and become a territory to belong to
the United States & be governed by the laws of Congress as the District of
Columbia & let the whole state be appropriated to the blacks where they can
cultivate the soil enjoy the benefit of schools and the institutions of the gospel
preparatory to their carrying' the same blessings to their fatherland and to the
colonies they may form elsewhere." [no signature] to Trumbull, April n, 1862,
TrumbuJl manuscripts.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 319
In an amnesty proclamation dated December 8, 1863, Lin-
coln had alarmed the radical republicans by assuming the
restoration of the southern states under executive direction;
but these advocates of congressional jurisdiction were pacified
by his expressed willingness to abandon his own matured plan
for one which might better " accomplish the great end of sav-
ing the Union, and redeeming the land from the curse of
slavery." 19 When, however, in the early summer of 1864 the
radicals in congress brought forward their own scheme in the
Wade-Davis bill Lincoln, who considered it too drastic, de-
feated it with a pocket veto. This forced the issue ; the radicals
replied with a manifesto, crying out their defiance in a note that
echoed over the prairies of Illinois. 20
With all these elements of weakness in the administration
party, it seemed to be doomed. Prominent supporters of Lin-
coln in Illinois, like Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, agreed
with their associates elsewhere that they were fighting a losing
battle. The republican national executive committee notified
Lincoln of his probable defeat. Lincoln resigned himself
to his fate and prepared "to so cooperate with the Presi-
dent-elect as to save the Union between the election and the
inauguration." 21
Out of the gloom of those depressing months of 1864 there
rose before the American people a dread vision of the human
lives destroyed by confederate bullets and camp disease, of
widows and orphans, of more suffering and anguish and de-
spair. The faith of many in "war to the finish" was shaken.
" Peace ! Peace ! " was the cry that rose on every hand. Many
distinguished and patriotic Americans believed and said that
the war was a failure. Wendell Phillips undertook to remind
himself and the nation that all civil wars are ended by com-
promises. Horace Greeley voiced the growing demand for
a move to bring about an understanding with the south; so
discouraged was he with the military situation that he was
ready for peace at almost any price. Declaring that nine-
19 Chicago Tribune, December u, 1863; Chicago Morning Post, December
17, 1863.
20 Cairo Democrat, August 13, 1864.
21 Writings of Abraham Lincoln, 7:196-197. Lincoln informed Gustave
Koerner of his fears of defeat Koerner, Memoirs, 2:432.
320 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
tenths of the people were equally anxious for an end to the
war, he brought such pressure to bear upon Lincoln that the
latter was compelled to sanction informal conferences with
confederate agents at Niagara and Richmond. President Lin-
coln, however, submitted such an extreme ultimatum that, as
he expected, it was straightway rejected; he was therefore
denounced as an intolerant opponent of fair peace terms. 22
In Illinois the democrats found rich political capital in this
situation. The administration party, declared the Chicago
Times, July 25, 1864, "has been offered peace and Union, and
has rejected the offer. It demands the wealth and lives of our
people to prosecute a crusade against an institution whose
rights are guaranteed by the law investing them with temporary
power, and which they have sworn to defend and support."
"The unceasing and still-recurring demands of Mr. Lincoln
for more human lives is absolutely appalling. Where are the
million and a half of human beings which the war has already
swallowed up?" 23 "We are told," declared the Cairo Daily
Democrat, July 31, "that we must fight on, fight ever, for the
Union ! We want the Union ! None in the Lincoln army
whether fanatic or Democrat wants the old Union more than
we do. We would fight for it, die for it. But we must have
peace."
The Chicago Times was explicit as to "how democrats
would end the war : " " In detail, the policy of the democracy,
after gaining possession of the government, and thus remov-
ing the cause of the secession of the South, would be to remedy
one by one the grievances inaugurated by the republican admin-
istration, and against which the South is fighting. They would
offer the South the constitution, and with it the guarantee that
for all time the rights of the States under that constitution
should be preserved inviolate. This would be a victory over
the rebellion more potent than the taking of a dozen Richmonds
or the slaughter of an hundred thousand rebels in arms." 24
The organization of this peace propaganda the democrats
22 This in Greeley's opinion was sufficient in itself to involve his defeat.
Rhodes, History of the United States, 4:513-514, 517; Cairo Weekly Democrat,
January 3, 1864; Cairo Morning Ne-ivs, July 23, 1864.
23 Chicago Times, February 5, 1864.
24 Ibid., July 2, 1864; cf. Cairo Democrat, July 29, 1864.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 321
of Illinois had started openly in the late spring of 1863 ; under
the lead of General Singleton, a series of democratic peace
conventions had declared that peace was the creed of the demo-
cratic party. Conservative leaders sought to hold the party
to this course; John Reynolds in "An appeal to the Democratic
party of Illinois" urged peace, declaring that "Abolitionism
is, and always was, the cause of the war." " The slave States,"
he stated, "have not now, and never had, any intention to
dismember the Union, until Abolitionism forced them to defend
their property." 25
In line with this movement leading democrats made pro-
vision for an expression of opinion at a mass "democratic
convention" at Peoria early in August, 1864. The meeting
was arranged by the Illinois Order of American Knights and
the list of 146 signers of the call included such peace advocates
as James W. Singleton, Amos Green, Madison Y. Johnson, and
David Sheean. Several thousand persons responded to the call
the Chicago Times said ten to twenty thousand, while the
Tribune estimated the attendance as seven or eight thousand. 26
The convention adopted resolutions that declared the coercion
and subjugation of sovereign states impossible as well as un-
authorized by the constitution and urged an armistice, a conven-
tion of the states, and the repeal of all unconstitutional edicts
and pretended laws as a preliminary to a final and honorable
peace. The meeting resolved to reassemble at Springfield on
August 1 8. Again the pilgrims of peace gathered in multi-
25 Belleville Democrat, January 9, 1864. On November 25, 1863, a conven-
tion of war democrats from all parts of the union met at Chicago to establish
a war democracy; on December 3, 1863, a "consulting convention of peace
democrats " from the northwestern states met there for special organization.
The Chicago Post and the Chicago Times frowned on both of these abortive
movements as unnecessary and harmful to the democratic cause. Chicago Morn-
ing Post, November 8, December 15, 1863; Chicago Times, November 26, Decem-
ber 12, 1863.
26 Illinois State Journal, July n, 21, August 6, 1864; the Chicago Times,
July 8, 1864, protested the call of a democratic mass convention without refer-
ence to the regularly constituted authority of the party. Cf. Canton Weekly
Register, July 18, 1864. The Chicago Morning Post (democratic) protested
against the peace party's use of the name of the democratic party; it suggested
that "love for Peoria whiskey" helped to explain the participation of at least
certain politicians. The Peoria Mail said there were from twenty-five thou-
sand to forty thousand people at the meeting, the Illinois State Register, August
6, said fifteen to twenty-five thousand, while the Peoria Transcript said less
than two thousand.
322 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
rudes, arriving on horseback and in wagons bearing white ban-
ners with peace devices and mottoes; silver-tongued orators
from neighboring states and from the different sections of Illi-
nois charmed the large audience which was, adorned with white
rosettes and peace badges emblematic of the role of a triumph-
ant democratic party. 27
The democrats, without their having turned a hand, seemed
to have victory within grasp. Posing as the watchful guard-
ians of the constitution, they quietly enjoyed their steady gains
and waited to organize their campaign. Yet within their ranks
were all shades of opinion on war and peace, so that it was no
easy task to figure out the strategy of their position. They
finally held a state convention in June to select delegates to
the national convention and to place an electoral ticket in the
field ; but postponed nominations for state offices to a later date.
The state convention was clever enough to declare inexpedient
the adoption of a platform since the national convention would
make the necessary declaration of principles; 28 in this way it
avoided a split over the issue of the desirability of a "war"
platform or a "peace platform."
The date of the democratic national convention was post-
poned from July 4 until August 29. The party leader had
carefully canvassed the field of presidential candidates; Gen-
eral Grant had been favored by many because of his avail-
ability as a military hero; though his democracy was dormant,
it was sufficiently sound for the situation. Grant, however,
repudiated the idea of presidential aspirations and a new candi-
date had to be found. 29 Governor Horatio Seymour of New
York was the favorite candidate of many moderate democrats,
while Pendleton of Ohio was supported by certain ultra peace
advocates. General George B. McClellan was supported as
having an availability similar to Grant's; he was a favorite
with the army of the Potomac personally liked and admired
27 Illinois State Journal, August 19, 1864; Illinois State Register, August 19,
1864.
28 Ibid., January 25, June 16, 1864; Chicago Morning Post, January 29,
1864; Jacksonville Journal, June 16, 1864; Chicago Times, June 18, 1864.
29 Grant to T. N. Morris, January 20, 1864, Illinois State Historical Society,
Journal, 8:592; cf. Chicago Times, January 6, 1864; Ottawa Weekly Repub-
lican, January 30, 1864; Chicago Morning Post, April 12, 1864.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 323
by the soldiers. McClellan steadily gained strength through-
out Illinois, although state democratic journals frowned upon
this development. The Chicago Tribune claimed that McClel-
lan's support came from the "bloated aristocrats of the demo-
cratic party," " the*money-brokers of Wall street and the great
railroad corporations of New York and New England," on
the one hand, and from the " great unwashed of the Celtic
persuasion," on the other; nevertheless, McClellan stock con-
tinued to climb. 30
Inasmuch as General McClellan could not be charged with
responsibility for any recent losses, the failure of the war was
in August the most likely democratic rallying point. Accord-
ingly, when the national convention met at Chicago, August
29, under the eye of fifteen thousand enthusiastic spectators,
it nominated McClellan but permitted Vallandigham to draft
a platform which declared the failure of the war and the need
of peace. The immediate reaction was an outburst of enthusi-
asm that boded ill for Lincoln's hopes of reelection. 31
Republican leadership nearly collapsed at the signs of dem-
ocratic unity and enthusiasm at Chicago. The withdrawal of
both Fremont and Lincoln was suggested as a necessary pre-
liminary to an effective reorganization of the republican cam-
paign. Fremont's chances were known to be hopeless ; Lincoln's
apparent strength when nominated was declared fictitious. " I
write you to have you use your influence to have Lincoln's
name withdrawn," an Illinois constituent appealed to Trum-
bull. " Lincoln's course has not only dissatisfied but embittered
many thousands of Republicans, particularly Germans, against
him ; the Fremont party, and the Chase and Wade-Davis move-
ment, and the anti-slavery dissatisfaction in New England,
weakens him greatly; there is no enthusiasm for him, and can-
not be." 32 Many, though tried by Lincoln's course, continued
30 Chicago Tribune, August 29, 1864; Chicago Times, August 18, 1864;
Jonesboro Gazette, June 18, 1864; Cairo Democrat, August 17, 1864; John M.
Palmer to Trumbull, January 24, 1864, Trumbull manuscripts; cf. Rhodes,
History of the United States, 4:507^
31 Illinois State Register, September i, 3, 1864; Chicago Times, September
i, 1864; Gershom Martin to Trumbull, September 3, 1864, Trumbull manu-
scripts. Even ex-Senator O. H. Browning, an old conservative supporter of
Lincoln, commended the nomination of McClellan and declared that he should
not feel at all distressed if he should be elected.
32 Gershom Martin to Trumbull, September 3, 1864, ibid.
324 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
to feel that the country could not at such a time risk the up-
heaval entailed by change of presidents so supported him
without enthusiasm. 33
Just at this crisis news arrived of Farragut's success at
Mobile and, after a hard long struggle* continued through
weary months, of the capture of Atlanta by General Sherman. 34
The republicans became wild with sheer joy and spread the
good tidings with enthusiasm. Then followed the report of a
succession of victories by Sheridan in the valley of the Shenan-
doah. Republicans became still more jubilant; enthusiasts
began in the same breath to predict the prompt suppression of
the rebellion and the election of Lincoln. President Lincoln
capitalized these developments politically by proclaiming a
special day of thanksgiving to be celebrated in the churches,
navy yards, and arsenals.
The democrats had just declared the war a failure;
here was proof that they were in the wrong. The platform
became impracticable and untenable; republicans called it
" unpatriotic, almost treasonable to the Union." 35 So
McClellan in his letter of acceptance repudiated the peace
article in the platform, declaring himself unconditionally
for the union, even to coercion. All democratic planning for
the campaign was upset and gloom settled down upon their
camp.
Even now it was evident that victory could come only to a
united republican party; and Fremont was still in the field.
His withdrawal, however, was arranged as a result of a
bargain, to which Lincoln was at least indirectly a party; Post-
master-General Blair, a moderate, was sacrificed by the admin-
istration and asked to resign. Fremont in withdrawing took
occasion to declare : " In respect to Mr. Lincoln, I continue
to hold exactly the sentiments contained in my letter of accept-
ance. I consider that his administration has been politically,
militarily, and financially a failure, and that its necessary con-
tinuance is a cause of regret for the country." 36 Republican
33 G. T. Allen to Trumbull, October 4, 1864, Trumbull manuscripts.
34 Diary of Gideon Welles, 2: 135-140.
35 Ibid., 135; Cairo Democrat, September 13, 1864.
36 Fremont to George L. Stearns et al., a committee, September 21, 1864,
McPherson, Political History of the Rebellion, 426-427.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 325
workers chose to forget the sting of this declaration and con-
centrated attention on the canvass.
It is hard to find a single constructive forward-looking
issue in this campaign. The question of reconstruction, includ-
ing the possibility of a thirteenth amendment abolishing slav-
ery, might have been such an issue; indeed, some democrats,
because of the troubles reconstruction had already caused the
administration, did urge that it be made the momentous issue.
Another possible issue, though not essentially constructive, was
the question of the approval or disapproval of the Lincoln
administration. For this the democrats were more ready than
the republicans. The latter did not dare to indorse everything
Lincoln had done they could select certain features only and
for the rest rely on his generally good intentions. The impor-
tance of the labor vote suggested another available issue, for
it was in the Civil War period that modern labor problems had
their beginning. Many republicans, therefore, wanted the
president "to make the issue before the country distinctly per-
ceptible to all as democratic and aristocratic;" 37 the whole
purpose of the rebels, said they, was the establishment of an
aristocracy of blood and of wealth. The administration, how-
ever, after its delay in assuming the same ground in dealing
with the property of rebel leaders, was in no position to press
this point. Besides, the republican party of 1864 was not that
democratic force it had been in 1856: the fiscal needs and
financial transactions of the government had not only drawn
to its support but thrust into a prominent place in the party
the representatives of another aristocracy of wealth bank-
ers, manufacturers, and government contractors. The demo-
crats, moreover, as an opposition party, were able to make
considerable progress with the argument that the industrial
and laboring classes had been compelled to pay the greater
portion of the taxes. 38 Legislation, they said, had been
enacted on the old aristocratic policy that makes the rich
richer and poor poorer. But the republicans in reply
charged the democratic party with being an aristocracy
37 Diary of Gideon Welles, 2:43, 141-142; Jonesboro Gazette, July 16,
October i, 1864; Champaign County Union and Gazette, October 14, 1864.
38 Joliet Signal, July 19, 1864.
326 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
which had no place for "tailors, rail-splitters, mechanics, and
laborers."
No republican argument on any topic, however, was com-
plete without the illogical but effective declaration that under
the best of circumstances democrats were copperheads if not
traitors. 39 The Chicago platform was proclaimed unpatriotic
almost treasonable to the union. The issue was whether or
not a war shall be made against Lincoln to get peace with Jeff
Davis. A vote for McClellan would be a vote for slavery at
a time when that crime had plunged the country into the sor-
rows and waste of war. It would be a vote for the rebellion at
a moment when the rebellion was about to fail. It would be
a vote for disunion at a moment when the union was about to
be restored. All the south was hoping and praying for the
success of the peace candidates. Had not the democrats im-
ported as their leading campaign speaker the notorious Ohio
disloyalist, Clement L. Vallandigham? 40
Some of the democrats answered invective with invective.
Could there be any real enthusiasm for the "widow-maker,"
for the "man of drafts," they asked. The American people,
insisted the State Register, would never again commit the great
blunder of placing " an abolitionist and a buffoon " in the presi-
dential chair. Lincoln's three greatest generals were general
taxation, general conscription, and general corruption. Evi-
dence was offered that the republican campaign committee was
collecting a large " corruption fund " by assessments upon office-
holders; the formal demand for a quota of $67.44 from Cap-
tain Melancthon Smith, provost marshal for the second con-
gressional district, was published with the news of Captain
Smith's refusal. The authorities were charged with preparing
to use the troops and returned soldiers to intimidate voters in
the democratic strongholds ; the warning was issued that union
leagues were arming and organizing along military lines and
that the free elective franchise was thereby threatened. 41
The more levelheaded democrats concentrated on the argu-
39 Koerner, Memoirs, 2:434-435. Koerner enlisted as a campaign speaker
but found his audiences entirely unwilling to listen to sober political analysis.
40 Chicago Tribune, October 22, 31, 1864; Aurora Beacon, November 3, 1864.
41 Illinois State Register, September 4, 8, 25, October 6, 9, 15, 1864; Cairo
Democrat, August 16, 1864.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 327
ment that " our liberties are in danger through the action of
the government in its efforts to put down the rebellion." They
talked of martial law, of arbitrary arrests, of suppression of
the press. They held that they, more truly than the repub-
licans, were the real champions of "the Constitution as it is,
the Union as it was."
The democrats were demoralized by the defection of prom-
inent members of their party who as war democrats had sup-
ported the Lincoln administration and who now urged his
reelection. General John A. Logan, at the suggestion of the
administration, returned from the front to participate in the
canvass on the republican side. He was welcomed to Spring-
field by his former political opponents with a salvo of artillery
and the music of a band; he and Governor Yates then made
addresses at the statehouse in support of Lincoln. 42 Logan
took the stump actively against William Joshua Allen, who
was seeking reelection to Logan's old seat in congress, and
denounced him as the traitor.who had tried to carry the south-
ern half of Illinois into the southern confederacy. 43 General
James D. Morgan, a lifelong democrat, was cited as having
refused to indorse McClellan's candidacy because its chief
strength lay among traitors. General John A. McClernand's
name was often published as a supporter of Lincoln, but Mc-
Clernand because of his disgust at the treatment he had received
from the administration finally cleared up his position in a
letter unequivocally in favor of McClellan. 44
The wild enthusiasm inspired by the victories of Farragut,
Sherman, Sheridan, and Grant had turned the political tide
against the democracy. The army news discredited all proph-
ets who proclaimed that the war was a failure. This was the
undoing of the democrats; it was also a potent force to heal
republican divisions. Radicals who had sworn never to repeat
their 1 860 votes for Lincoln buried their oaths in the republican
celebrations; the German-American voters marched to the polls
42 Illinois State Register, October 5, 1864; Dawson, Life of Logan, 86-87.
43 Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1864; Illinois State Journal, October 29,
November i, 1864.
44 Illinois State Register, October 7, 1864; Chicago Times, October u, 1864.
The republicans received another shock when Judge J. D. Caton of the state
supreme court entered the campaign on the democratic side. Aurora Beacon,
October 13, 1864; Chicago Tribune, October 26, 1864.
328 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
an almost solid Lincoln phalanx. 45 It was no wonder then that
Lincoln swept all before him and that McClellan was buried in
this famous landslide of November, 1864, when Illinois con-
tributed 30,736 to the heavy popular majority piled up for her
favorite son.
What, then, was the meaning of Lincoln's reelection? It
was the inevitable triumph of right, of the union, announced
his supporters. Democrats, however, took a different view.
"This result," declared the State Register, "is the heaviest
calamity that ever befell this nation; .... [it is] the
farewell to civil liberty, to a republican form of government,
and to the unity of these States." " Lincoln re-elected himself
in spite of the people," insisted the Joliet Signal.^
The republicans considered it a splendid victory, for the
party, if not for the administration. They had thrown their
entire strength into the national campaign knowing that upon
it would depend the outcome of the state election and of the
congressional contests. Thus it was that Lincoln carried the
republican ticket for state offices to victory together with eleven
out of the fourteen republican candidates for congress, while
both houses of the legislature went strongly republican. Major
General Richard J. Oglesby, of Decatur, was accordingly
elected governor to succeed Governor Yates over James C.
Robinson, the democratic candidate. The veteran " Long
John " Wentworth was again sent to congress from the Chicago
district, where he defeated Cyrus H. McCormick, the reaper
manufacturer. Another notable republican congressional tri-
umph took place in the heart of Egypt, where A. J. Kuykendall,
aided by the work of John A. Logan, unseated Logan's former
law partner, William Joshua Allen, the anti-war democrat.
The logical fruits of the republican legislative victory were
gathered in the election of Richard Yates to the United States
senate to succeed William A. Richardson ; this was the reward
45 The Chicago Tribune, November n, 1864, assigned an important share
in the union victory to the German vote which finally lined up with the Illinois
Staats-Zeitung, a consistent supporter of the Lincoln administration. Many
Germans, however, like the editors of the Springfield Illinois Staats Anzeiger
went so far as to support McClellan and Pendleton. Chicago Times, October
6,8, 1864.
46 Illinois State Register, November 10, 1864; Joliet Signal, December 6,
1864.
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN 329
for four years of patriotic service as the war governor of the
great prairie state.
The republican landslide of 1864 wiped out the troublous
memories of democratic success in the two previous years, when
the only real bond to the federal administration was to be found
in republican control of the state executive offices. It was,
indeed, at the very time, when the democratic party threatened
to sweep the republicans from this last point of vantage, that
the tide of war had turned and played havoc with the prog-
nostications of the political prophets. Then the despaired of
victory proved so sweeping that it laid the foundations for con-
tinued republican control of this old democratic stronghold and
the traditions of the eighteen fifties and the early sixties yielded
to a new order of things.
XV. POPULATION IN WARTIME
THE high water mark of the tide of humanity that swept
out to the Illinois prairies was reached on the eve of the
Civil War. Then came that upheaval that absorbed all the
energies of the American people and repelled the stream of
immigration that had been flowing across the Atlantic. Amer-
ica still continued to be symbolic of that large allowance of
liberty for which so many Europeans longed ; but, in view of
the forecasts of the ruling class of Europe, they were fearful
that it would be swept away in the torrent of blood in which
the institution of slavery had deluged the American nation.
The traditions of northern freedom, however, still had a
charm for certain Americans; from the slaveholding states
there now poured a fresh stream of immigrants for whom the
atmosphere of human slavery became as suffocatingly intoler-
able as any economic and political oppression in the old world.
The lands along the Illinois Central had already become a
lodestone for ambitious agriculturists from Tennessee and Ala-
bama, even from far off Georgia all eager to absorb the
spirit that was transforming the prairies of Illinois into a gar-
den state. With the first clash of arms the stream became a
swollen torrent, bearing with it political refugees who refused
to remain in a slaveholding republic founded upon the ruins
of the old American union. The railroads developed a large
business transporting families, with their furniture and agri-
cultural implements, to points in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin ;
steamers made their way up the Mississippi crowded with
refugee pilgrims to the land of freedom; swarms of Missouri-
ans driven from their homes by secessionists crossed the river
to Illinois bringing their teams, cattle, and remaining worldly
goods 1 though some of these exiles returned to their homes
1 Roc kford Register February 16, 1861; Rockford Republican, April n,
1861 ; Jonesboro Gazette, August 10, 1861 ; Quincy Whig clipped in Rockford
33C
Population of Illinois
per Square Mile in
ISM
More than SO
40 to SO
30 to 40
20 to 30
Less than 20
POPULATION IN WARTIME 331
in Missouri when the state was swept clear of secession and
order was restored there. Victories of the union armies re-
leased new streams from all the border states; this was par-
ticularly noticeable in the spring of 1863, when the Illinois
Central distributed hundreds of families from Virginia, Ten-
nessee, Kentucky, and Missouri as candidates for the charity
of the different communities. Friends and relatives in those
parts of southern and central Illinois that had been settled by
recent immigrants from the border states welcomed the new
arrivals. 2
Many of these refugees were women and children who
represented the bone and sinew of the upper south; the men
were usually in the southern or union armies, although some
fled north to escape conscription. Many, too, belonged to the
uneducated, non-slaveholding poor white class and presented
a sorry appearance; even the women were usually snuff dippers
or tobacco chewers and " a considerable sum of the money given
to them, was immediately invested in snuff and tobacco." 3 All
were received kindly, however, and treated charitably. The
mayor of Centralia protested when General Buford " forced"
one hundred and twenty paupers upon the city; but the union
men welcomed them and the school directors placed at their
disposal a large seminary building, the only vacant building in
the city. 4
Cairo was the Ellis Island for this immigration. Steamer
after steamer arrived with cargoes of human freight and the
nearby towns of Anna and Jonesboro received refugees until
the people protested their inability to provide for more. Ac-
commodations at Cairo were extremely inadequate and as the
government did not assume complete responsibility for their
welfare, great destitution and suffering often developed among
the refugees. Families were sometimes left a good part of the
night on the cold and muddy levee without shelter or even
blankets, and even after aid had been dispensed in securing
Republican, October 17, 1861; Illinois State Journal, December 6, 1861; Rock
River Democrat, March n, 1862; Mississippi Blatter, June 8, 1862.
2 Illinois State Journal, April 2, May 20, June 9, September n, 1863; Canton
Weekly Register, April 6, 1863; Belleville Advocate, April 17, 1863; Cairo
Weekly Democrat, March 6, 1864.
3 Cairo Morning News, June 25, 1863.
* Cairo Gazette, July 2, 1863.
332 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
quarters, the immigrants were often lost sight of in the end-
less stream that poured in; a relief committee found forty-two
crowded into a single room of an abandoned barracks. Over
three thousand, not including children, were given money
contributions, clothing, and food by the local agent of the
United States Sanitary Commission in the last six months of
1863. Some of these refugees were transported to Chicago
and upper Illinois, where the adjustment to their new homes
was often made under difficulties. One shipment of one hun-
dred and fifty persons reached Springfield in January, 1865,
after trying experiences; at Cairo they had been kept five days
on an overloaded boat, without places to sleep, and with scarcely
any food; the Illinois Central railroad agents then placed them
in hog cars, which had not been cleaned since used, and they
were transported in a severe midwinter temperature to Deca-
tur, covering the two hundred miles in seventy-two hours, and
thence they were brought to Springfield. 5 Although relief
work was organized by the refugee relief committee in Chicago
and in other parts of the state, yet it was always inadequate
to the demand and numerous deaths among these poor
folk resulted from the neglect and exposure which they under-
went.
The problem of union refugees was complicated by bands
of Missouri ruffians who came into Illinois representing them-
selves as expelled unionists; they were soon, however, under
suspicion as akin to those bushwhackers who came over to
carry on their depredations in copperhead districts. Again it
appeared that the Missouri military authorities were often
banishing convicted rebels to Illinois whose citizens protested
against the " making of Illinois a ' Botany Bay ' for the traitors
of Missouri." 6 Moreover, the new Missouri constitution dis-
franchised certain classes as a result of which a number of noted
5 Chicago Times, January 12, 1864; Cairo Weekly Democrat, January 13,
1864; Rockford Register, January 16, 1864; Cairo Democrat, February 3,
June i, 1864; Cairo Morning News, July 30, 1864; Rockford Democrat, Jan-
uary 5, 1865; Chicago Tribune, January 16, iS6j. These refugees were expected
to relieve the labor shortage. See Mississippi Blatter, March 6, 1864; Cairo
Democrat, February 9, 1865. In 1865 an industrial home for refugees was
established at Chicago. Chicago Times, February 23, June 27, 1865.
8 Jonesboro Gazette, August 10, 1861 ; Illinois State Journal, February 17,
March 28, 1864; Chicago Tribune, July 6, 1865.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 333
bushwhackers, guerrillas, and rebel soldiers moved over into
the southern counties of Illinois.
Another species of immigrants came from southern climes
to this new Canaan at the north. These were the Negro free-
men, an element which the state in all its traditions had pre-
viously refused to welcome. At the outbreak of the war it
was even a crime for a Negro to set his foot upon Illinois soil;
a year later another constitutional provision to renew the man-
date in the fundamental law was submitted to the people of the
state by the constitutional convention of 1862; and the voters
of both parties declared with a majority of over 150,000, out
of an aggregate vote of 240,000, that they were still opposed
to letting down the barriers to Negro immigration.
If Illinois was hostile to the free Negro, there could be no
question as to its stand in regard to the fugitive slave, and it is
not to be wondered that, in spite of southern prophecies, the
inauguration of President Lincoln did nothing to open a haven
of refuge for the fugitive slave in Illinois. Certain Illinois
democrats were desirous that new guarantees to the south be
furnished by state legislation in aid of the fugitive slave law,
but Lincoln and the republicans were content with a faithful
execution of the law and with preventing obstructions to its
enforcement by northern legislation. 7 Lincoln's newly appointed
federal marshals did not shirk their obligations; Marshal J.
Russell Jones of the northern district was soon assisting the
man hunters in recovering their property in Chicago; and,
within a month of Lincoln's inauguration, considerable excite-
ment was aroused when the family of Onesimus Harris was
sent back to bondage in Missouri. Marshal Jones seemed in
this case to surpass all his predecessors in office in his zealous
enforcement of the law. As a result the colored population of
the city, no longer regarding it as a place of safety, began to
leave for her Majesty's dominions; within a week the exodus
from the panic-stricken colored quarters became a veritable
stampede. 8
Under the federal confiscation laws, however, and under the
7 'Belleville Advocate, January 25, February i, 1861.
8 Chicago Tribune, April 4, 6, 1861 ; Illinois State Journal, April 4, 5, 1861 ;
Rockford Register, April 6, 1861 ; Prairie Farmer, April n, 1861.
334 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
policies of commanders in the field, slaves of rebel planters
who were captured by the federal armies or had fled to the
union lines were given a status as " contrabands " and their
masters' claims were declared forfeited. Thereupon, large
numbers of contrabands made their appearance at Cairo and
began to distribute themselves over the state. This influx
began just as the new constitution of 1862 was submitted to
the voters of the state, and they spoke decisively. Yet in mid-
summer by arrangement between the secretary of war and
the military commander at Cairo under the second confiscation
act, the contrabands continued to pour into Cairo until the
levees were " so dark with negroes that pedestrians found it
difficult to peregrinate without lanterns." 9 From Cairo, which
was under martial law and legally amenable to such a policy,
the Illinois Central carried one to four carloads northward
daily and distributed them in various parts of the state. Al-
though republicans urged the farmers to welcome this source
of cheap help, the democrats set up a howl about an impending
reduction of wages and consequent distress among the laboring
classes. When General Tuttle, commander at Cairo, formally
invited the mayor of Chicago to cooperate in securing employ-
ment for Negro immigrants in that city, Mayor Francis C.
Sherman, a democrat, with the approval of the city council,
refused to act in violation of the state law " to the great injus-
tice of our laboring population;" yet, refugees soon began to
arrive in daily shipments of from eighty to one hundred and
sixty. 10 Quincy and other Mississippi river ports were also
receiving heavy consignments, and the people of Rock Island
county therefore held a public meeting to consider the best
mode of staying the influx.
Republicans were fast learning, to their sorrow, however,
that race prejudice was no respecter of parties; they were
greatly weakened, if not defeated, by this new issue in the
election of 1862. Leonard Swett of Bloomington, republican
candidate for congress, tried to stem the tide that was turning
9 Cairo Gazette, August 19, 1862.
l Joliet Signal, September 23, 30, 1862; Illinois State Register, September 30,
October 7, 8, 1862; Champaign County Democrat, October 9, 1862; Jonesboro
Gazette, October u, 18, 1862; Rockjord Register, October n, 1862; Carbondale
Times clipped in Belleville Advocate, October 24, 1862.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 335
against him by publicly announcing his belief that the importa-
tion of colored persons into Illinois would degrade white labor
and demoralize the people. The republican press was indeed
glad when it was able to announce, though already too late,
that the war department had forbidden the sending of any
more "contrabands" to Illinois; a few months later General
Hurlbut transferred the contraband camp at Cairo to Island
Number IO. 11
With Lincoln's emancipation proclamation Congressman
J. C. Allen rigorously attacked republican policy and declared
his fears that the state would now be overrun with freedmen;
and although the Chicago Tribune optimistically prophesied
that the Negro would "shape his bearings and route by the
Southern Cross instead of the North Star," 12 only the proroga-
tion of the legislature of 1863 prevented the enactment of new
and more drastic guarantees against the impending immigra-
tion. The democrats, meantime, used the courts to enforce
existing legislation; in February, 1863, six Negroes were con-
victed at Carthage of living within the state contrary to the
black laws and were thereupon sold for their fines to the high-
est bidders. In July a Negro who returned with Dr. L. D.
Kellogg, surgeon in the Seventeenth Illinois regiment, was sen-
tenced and sold in like manner. The following month, Annie
Long, a young colored woman who claimed that she had come
into Edgar county merely to visit, was fined $50 and costs for
violation of the law and advertised for sale until the funds
were advanced by republican sympathizers. 13 Such action, to-
gether with the cooperation of the federal authorities at Cairo,
for the time practically ended the influx of freedmen through
southern Illinois.
In 1865 the repeal of the black laws after a campaign by
11 Illinois State Journal, October 15, 22, 1862; Cairo Gazette, April 2, 16,
1863. William Yocum, superintendent of contrabands at Cairo, was later con-
victed of selling contrabands back into slavery in Kentucky; a Reverend Mr.
Rodgers, chaplain of contrabands and General N. B. Buford were also accused
of sharing in the profits of such illegal sales. Cairo Democrat, December 13,
1863; Illinois State Journal, June 25, 1864.
12 Belleville Democrat, November i, 1862; Chicago Tribune, December 6,
1862.
13 Rockford Register, March 7, 1863 ; Canton Weekly Register, August 3,
1863; Paris Beacon clipped in Illinois State Journal, August 19, 1863; Chicago
Tribune, August 21, 1863.
336 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the radical republicans provided an open door to prospective
Negro immigrants to Illinois. 14 Immediately they began to
settle in various parts of the state, although new opportunities
for the freedman in the south checked the northward flow. The
new immigrants were distributed over the state by agents of
the Northwestern Freedman's Aid Commission, which had
been organized in 1863, for the relief of the colored popula-
tion in the south. 15 The Negro population of the state in-
creased more than threefold, reaching a total of 28,762. Of
this population over four thousand out of sheer inertia re-
mained behind in Cairo and its vicinity, where the ante-bellum
population had been only fifty-five; in the main Negroes, how-
ever, sought the more hospitable atmosphere of Chicago and
other antislavery centers like Quincy, Galesburg, Jacksonville,
and Springfield. They thus became an urban population the
hewers of wood and drawers of water for their more pros-
perous white neighbors.
The war spirit served to break down some of the barriers
against the Negro. Illinoisians were among the earliest advo-
cates of Negro soldiers and hundreds of colored troops were
recruited in the state as volunteers or as substitutes under the
draft. In civil life, too, the Negro was given increased oppor-
tunities. Colored women were admitted to the Chicago Ladies
Loyal League; Negro graduates appeared in the commence-
ment exercises of Knox and Lombard colleges, while the doors
of Shurtleff College and of the state normal school were opened
to colored students. 16 The passage of the civil rights bill in
1866 guaranteed the Negroes against legal discrimination; the
colored residents of Chicago and Cairo celebrated this event
in a large meeting. In practice, however, the word "white"
14 The author of the black laws of 1855 was John A. Logan, who introduced
them in the lower house in 1853 ; they were presented in the senate by A. J.
Kuykendall. These two men and S. W. Moulton, a prominent supporter, were
then democrats, but in 1865 were prominent members of the union party, the last
two having just been elected to congress. Chicago Tribune, January 16, 1865.
^Carthage Republican, July 27, August 24, 1865; Central Illinois Gazette,
October 13, 1865; Illinois State Register, April 8, 1865; Cairo Bulletin clipped in
ibid., March 26, 1870. In 1864 the Quincy branch had a department at the local
Sanitary Fair to raise funds to provide for the Negro refugees in that city in
violation of the black laws. Rockford Republican, August 20, 1864, April 8, 1865.
16 Chicago Times, July i, 1864; Chicago Tribune, January 18, 1868; Illinois
Democrat, March 28, 1868; Belleville Democrat, March 19, 1868.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 337
remained in the school laws of Illinois; and although in some
instances the Negroes were provided with segregated public
schools, most communities excluded colored children from the
schools with the provision that upon application the school
taxes would be refunded to colored taxpayers. 17 These ostra-
cized residents, already accustomed to religious worship in
their own Methodist or Baptist churches, often raised funds
for their own schools.
Much of the atmosphere of persecution began to disappear.
There were still outbursts of negrophobia, but the maltreat-
ment of inoffensive Negroes came pretty much to an end when
civil rights were conferred upon that race. The regalia of
colored secret societies, "white muslin belts and scarfs, embel-
lished with blue, pink, black, yellow and white ribbons; large
rosettes, sprigs of cedar, brass buttons, vari-colored tassels,"
began to appear on the streets on Sundays and holidays. 18
Negro military companies began to parade in uniform. Mid-
summer became a season of the festive picnicking and merry-
making, so compelling for the members of the race.
In the course of the decade the colored population of the
state became more aggressive in the assertion of its rights. A
mass convention at Springfield in January, 1865, petitioned the
legislature to repeal "the laws now in force against us on ac-
count of our complexion;" a state delegate convention eight
months later initiated their annual plea for impartial suffrage.
The republicans not only agitated for Negro franchise but
courted the prospective Negro vote by suggestions of future
officeholding. In 1868 a group of local republican merchants
urged the nomination of Captain James W. Brockway, of the
Twentieth United States colored infantry, for the office of
collector of South Chicago; a year later Governor Palmer
explained to the colored residents of Springfield that they were
eligible for any office under the constitution. The news of the
ratification of the fifteenth amendment on March 30, 1870,
resulted in grand demonstrations by the colored residents of
the chief cities of the state; and on April 5, under the new dis-
17 Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1866; Cairo Times clipped in Belleville Advo-
cate, May 18, 1866; Canton Weekly Register, April 17, November 13, 1868. The
annual taxes paid by colored residents of Cairo were about twenty dollars.
18 Cairo Democrat, November 13, 1867.
338 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
pensation, they participated for the first time in Illinois
elections. 19
The war interrupted the westward movement of the native
American population just at a time when the Illinois prairies
were receiving a large share of hardy settlers. With the return
of peace there came a renewed immigration from the eastern
states, and Illinois had a special welcome for the Yankees who
came to swell the New England towns and villages of northern
Illinois. "You may know them by their neat churches and
school-houses, and by the trees and flowers in their fenced
yards," was the proud boast of a Massachusetts editor. 20
Theodore Tilton, editor of the New York Independent, travel-
ing over the plains of Illinois on a lecture tour, was impressed
with the thrift, energy, growth, and civil progress of the west-
ern communities; he came to feel that " the beauty of the New
England character is not seen at its best till it ripens a while
in the West True, there is more wealth, more cul-
ture, more social refinement in the Eastern towns; but in the
Western there is more of that indefinable quality which (for
want of a better name) we call character. That is to say,
there is more individuality, more freedom from conventional
restraint, more independence in manners and opinions, more
flavor of native originality." 21
Peace removed the obstacles to foreign immigration to the
United States; and of the throngs that came Illinois received
more than her quota its salubrious climate and rich and
extensive prairies attracting the best of the home-seekers from
the old world. In 1866 the tide was running strong, but the
next year brought almost flood conditions; of the 25,000
immigrants' landing at New York during each of the summer
months of 1867, one-tenth indicated Illinois as their destina-
tion more foreign emigrants sought homes in Illinois than
19 Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1868, September 24, 1869. A few weeks
later he appointed John Jones of Chicago the first colored notary public in
Illinois. Rockford Gazette, November 25, 1869; Illinois State Register, March 31,
April 4, 5, 6, 13, 1870.
^Springfield Republican clipped in Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1867.
21 Belleville Democrat, January 4, 1867. It was still suggestive of the youth
of the state, however, that the legislature did not show a single native Illinpisian
in the senate and only eleven out of eighty-five in the house. Chicago Tribune,
February 3, 1865; The (Columbus, Ohio) Crisis, February 15, 1865.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 339
in any of the other states except New York. 22 After 1867 the
flow of immigration to the United States was less spectacular,
but the strong advantage for Illinois continued. In 1868,
34,625 immigrants arriving at New York gave Illinois as their
destination, while at the same time 3,852 set out for Indiana.
By 1 870 there were in Illinois 515,198 foreign born residents. 23
The attractions of the soil and climate, the natural resources
of the state, and the relief from heavy taxation that Illinois
promised, were now more systematically brought to the atten-
tion of prospective emigrants. Even during the years of the
war, a Chicago Emigrant Agency prosecuted its activities,
promising cheap passage from Ireland and England. With
the return of peace an American Emigrant Company, with
agencies in Europe and throughout America, appeared in
Chicago; it imported skilled labor from Europe and supplied
it at reasonable rates to manufacturers, railroad companies,
and other employers of labor. 24 The Illinois exhibit at the
Paris exposition in 1867 called the attention of Europe to the
resources of the state, as did the European advertisements of
the Illinois Central railroad. The bureau of immigration at
Washington, recognizing the popularity of Illinois, secured
data from Governor Oglesby for the benefit of the people of
Europe. The German Emigrant Aid Society at Chicago con-
tinued its work but found its resources so strained by the
heavy demand upon its good offices that it urged the state to
make provision for direct assistance. Southern Illinois real-
ized little or nothing from the immense tide of immigration
until zealous citizens of Cairo formed an Emigrant Aid
Society to attract settlers to that region. 25
22 Chicago Tribune, May 8, July 26, 1867; Illinois State Journal, Aug. 5, 1867.
23 Ibid., February 3, 1869. The decade of the sixties converted Illinois into
a populous commonwealth of over two million and a half persons, a gain of
nearly fifty per cent. The ratio of increase was lowest for the native American
population. The natural increase within the state, however, was slightly above
the general average, although there were in 1870 only 1,181,101 native born
Jllinoisians. The state failed to receive, however, a proportionate share of
immigrants from other parts of the United States.
24 Chicago Morning Post, April i, 1864; Chicago Tribune, September 5, 1865.
25 Illinois State Journal, February 3, 1869; Chicago Tribune, July n, 1867,
July 29, 1869; Cairo Democrat, November 16, 1866; Cairo Evening Bulletin,
December 22, 23, 1868, January 9, March 30, July i, 1869. The Irish of Chicago
also moved to establish an organization to provide for newcomers from the
Emerald Isle. Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1869.
340 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
In the decade the German born population of Illinois
reached the number of 203,750, exceeding the Irish by over
sixty-six per cent. The new German settlers, in contrast with
the south German exodus after 1848, came largely from
northern Germany. It was the old German centers in Illinois,
however, that in large part received this accretion; they con-
tinued to be industrious, frugal, and peaceful communities.
A new German center developed at Cairo, where a German
theater, a school, and a German newspaper were established.
The German residents of La Salle increased significantly and
included the owners and most of the operatives of the local
zinc factory. Their influence was expressed in furthering the
cause of education in 1869 when they elected a school director
and carried a bond issue of $20,000 for a new schoolhouse. 26
The majority of the Norwegians who formed part of a
heavy Scandinavian immigration passed through Illinois to
either Wisconsin, Iowa, or Minnesota. Chicago and a Nor-
wegian settlement nine miles out of Ottawa, however, received
several significant increments during the closing years of the
Civil War. 27 A Scandinavian Aid Society in Chicago was
organized in 1866 to give assistance to bewildered immigrants.
The Swedes, numbering 36,000 in 1870, were scattered all
over the state, with a sprinkling in the southern counties and
a considerable settlement at Paxton; but Rockford was the
main objective of those who sought the atmosphere of old
Sweden. At that place the Swedish Methodists undertook to
publish the Ambassador, a religious paper; at Chicago in 1866
were launched Den Svenska Amerikanaren, a newspaper for
the Swedish element of the northwest, and the Skandinaven,
a Norwegian-Danish daily. Yet, while they sought papers in
their own language, the Swedes of Rockford organized a
literary society through which they proposed to acquire a
fundamental knowledge of the uses of the English language
an action typical of this hardy, industrious class of settlers who
longed to understand their new surroundings. 28
26 Cairo Democrat, December 10, 1863, June 14, 17, 1864, March 30, May 25,
1865, November 16, 1866; Ottawa Weekly Republican, August 19, 1869.
27 Ottawa Free Trader, July 2, 1864; Ottawa Weekly Republican, July 2,
1864.
28 Rockford Gazette, January 21, 1869. The Swedish residents of Galesburg
POPULATION IN WARTIME 341
Practically every foreign born element received increases
during this decade. The Irish increased some 32,000, reach-
ing the total of 120,162, but no longer competed very seriously
with the Germans for the lead among the foreign born elements.
The English immigration was light but included a colony of
over three hundred families organized as the Durham and
Northumberland Farmers' Club of England; their agent, Dr.
A. R. Oliver, negotiated in behalf of this group for several
thousand acres in Alexander and Pulaski counties. There was
a hearty welcome for all; communities even competed with
each other in trying to attract foreign settlers. The effort was
even made in 1865 to attract to Illinois Polish political refugees
from Russian autocracy; the newest contribution, however, to
the cosmopolitan life of the state was a colony of six hundred
Italian families who in 18661867 located a few miles from
Pana. 29
The foreign vote continued a formidable factor in the
politics of the state. The different foreign elements went to
the polls more or less as units and were often a decisive factor
in an election; it was alleged that a half dozen canny Scots
backed by only 75 to 100 Scotch voters controlled the repub-
lican vote of Will county, which numbered 3,000. In local
contests a foreign group often put one of its nationality into
the field and worked harmoniously for his election. The Ger-
mans, Scandinavians, French, Scotch, and Portuguese were
mainly affiliated with republicans, the Irish adhered to the
democratic party, while the Jewish vote seemed to be evenly
divided. 30
The German vote of Illinois and neighboring states was
so powerful in 1860 that without its assistance Lincoln and
averaged $4,000 a month in remittances to the old country. Rushville Times,
September 30, 1869.
29 Cairo Democrat, November 26, 1867; Illinois State Journal, January 22,
1867.
s Joliet Signal, April 14, 1868. The French speaking population of Illinois
organized a benevolent society which declared itself " in favor of a political
union of all our elements to affirm our right and privileges " under the consti-
tution; in 1867 they brought out Francis Pasedeloup for alderman of the seventh
ward of Chicago. Chicago Evening Post, April 8, 1867. In 1868 the Swedes of
Henry county nominated an independent candidate for sheriff. Illinois State
Journal, June 24, 1868. Many Jews had not abandoned their democratic con-
nections; with democratic aid, others remembered General Grant's order dis-
criminating against them.
342 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
his party would have been decisively defeated; its support in
the years that followed made it possible to carry the war to its
logical conclusion. Yet the Germans were modest in their
claims for a share of the spoils; for several weeks after appli-
cations for office began pouring in upon Lincoln not a single
German office-seeker presented his claims. The services of
even the most prominent Illinois leaders received only slight
acknowledgment; Koerner, who had strongly nourished the
hope of securing the Berlin mission, was given no recognition
at all until he was sent as minister to Spain to succeed Carl
Schurz, who preferred active service. 31 Theodore Canisius,
editor of the Illinois Staats Anzeiger, was sent as consul to
Vienna, while George Schneider was appointed consul at Elsi-
nore, Denmark.
The German republican voters and their press were from
the first firmly opposed to concession or compromise to pre-
vent war; when the struggle came they were equally prompt
to insist that it bring about the extinction of slavery. They
were enthusiastic backers of Fremont's attack upon slavery;
in a meeting in Chicago to sustain his proclamation they
denounced the administration's attempt " to shirk the true issue
of the contest." 32 This was the beginning of an estrange-
ment from Lincoln that came to a climax in the campaign of
1864. Fremont had been one of their favorites in 1860, and
after the events of the following year they continued to pre-
sent his claims until his formal withdrawal in 1864. On the
reconstruction issues they stood firmly for thoroughgoing
southern adjustment to the consequences of secession and civil
war; they, therefore, without hesitation, repudiated President
Johnson and followed the radical leadership until the end of
the decade.
A growing restiveness on the part of the German repub-
81 Dodd, "Fight for the Northwest," American Historical Review, 16:786,
787, 788 ; White, Life of Lyman Trumbull, 103 ; Schneider, " Lincoln and the
Anti-Know Nothing Resolutions," McLean County Historical Society, Trans-
actions, 3:90; Selby, "Lincoln and German Patriotism," Deutsch-Amerikanischen
Historischen Gesellschaft von Illinois, Jakrbuch, 12:523; Illinois State Journal,
January 7, 1861; Koerner to Trumbull, January 21, February 22, March 13, 19,
1861, Trumbull manuscripts; Koerner, Memoirs, 2: 114, 212 ff.
82 Theodore Canisius to Trumbull, February 8, 1861, Trumbull manuscripts;
Moore, Rebellion Record, volume 3, document number 142, p. 344-345.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 343
licans appeared as the slavery issue began to wane. As local
elections revived local issues, association in " the party of great
moral ideas" with colleagues whose narrow vision precluded
a sympathetic understanding of German social customs became
distinctly embarrassing. The Puritanism of the Yankee now
expended itself on a revival of the old demand for prohibitory
liquor regulations and a strict sabbath observance. To the
German, the seventh day brought the simple human joys of
a jolly procession to the woods where the rifle club might
have a shooting match, the singing club a Gesangfest echoed
by the children in their frolic, and all a health to cherished
memories and to the land of their adoption. To sip a casual
social glass or to include in his meal one of the beverages of
the fatherland seemed to the German a fundamental personal
liberty which a free America could not deny him. To the scan-
dalized Yankee the German's bottle of beer meant a drunken
debauch and Sunday festivities meant a willingness " to sacri-
fice every principle or conviction in politics or morals" ....
" for the precious privilege of getting drunk and carousing on
the Sabbath." 33
German leaders took counsel over this "adulteration" of
the republican program by New England sectionalism. The
democratic party had in its early days shown an ability to
appreciate their distinctive traits; now again their old asso-
ciates welcomed them with understanding: the Germans "are
Liberals in the true sense, in religion, society, and politics.
In this respect they are the exact antithesis of what is denomi-
nated the puritannical element in our country. The Germans
believe in the largest liberty of conscience, of speech and social
enjoyment." 34 Henceforward the word " republicanism" lost
its magic; that the Teutonic allies did not desert en masse to
the democracy was largely due to the strategy of the repub-
lican leaders: the policy was adopted of stressing the slavery
issue in national and state elections and of answering republican
83 Cairo Democrat, September 19, 1867.
34 Belleville Democrat, September 26, November 7, December 12, 1867. On
this crisis see ibid., June 20, August i, 29, October 3, December 12, 1867; Cairo
Democrat, September 26, 1867; Illinois Staats-Zeitung clipped in Carthage
Republican, November 21, 1867; Joliet Signal, September 24, 1867; Ottawa Free
Trader, September 28, 1867; Illinois State Journal, October 3, 1867.
344 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
temperance crusaders with independent voting in the municipal
contests. 35
The Irish numbered forty thousand voters in Illinois in
1860. They controlled the elections in Cairo, Joliet, and other
democratic cities and were largely responsible for democratic
victories in Chicago. Because the republicans raised the anti-
Irish shibboleth in order to enlist the prejudices of the Amer-
icans and Germans, the Irish in the main continued contentedly
in the democratic fold. 36
Most of the Irish were drawn into the ranks of the Fenian
movement, probably the most significant national expression
of the foreign born in American history. The Fenian brother-
hood was a society of freedom-loving Irishmen passionately
devoted to the mission of creating a sentiment of nationality
among their countrymen, with a view ultimately of redeeming
Ireland from English rule. In this brotherhood the most
prominent and wealthy Irish citizens joined the laboring masses.
Local societies called "circles" under officers designated as
"centres" were formed in every Irish community, while the
society was knit together by state conventions under "head
centres" and by a national organization. In November, 1863,
when the first national Fenian convention was held at Chicago,
Illinois contained forty circles, and others were rapidly formed
under the direction of organizers like A. L. Morrison and
Michael Scanlan of Chicago; within a few months an Irish
National Fair was held at Chicago, at which generous subscrip-
tions to the cause were made by the friends of the Irish of
every origin. By 1865, when the national organization had
enrolled several hundred thousand members, Chicago had
become the life and soul of the movement, regularly forward-
ing thousand dollar remittances to the New York office. 87
35 Bruncken, "Political Activity of Wisconsin Germans," Wisconsin His-
torical Society, Proceedings, 1901-1902, p. 200. In the election of members of
the constitutional convention of 1870 German meetings adopted the policy of
refusing to support any candidate who would not pledge himself to work against
the introduction of prohibitory liquor regulations. Joliet Signal, February 2,
June 15, July 27, 1869.
36 Ibid., April 14, 1868; Joliet Republican, March 7, 1868. Republicans
claimed that one Irish republican in fifty was a high estimate. Illinois State
Journal, September 15, 1868.
37 P. W. Dunne of Peoria subscribed more money to the Fenian cause than
any other man in America. Chicago Tribune, November 2, 1866; Chicago Times,
November 4, 1863; Chicago Post, December 20, 1865.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 345
The Fenian brotherhood came to encompass all the activi-
ties of the Hibernian population of Illinois. Their social life
was shaped by the banquets, balls, and picnics arranged by the
organization. Military drill was one of the objects of the
society, and early in 1866 this motive became evident when
the invasion of Canada under General Thomas W. Sweeney
was attempted. A motley Fenian army including many veter-
ans of the Civil War was raised, to which Illinois contributed
generous quotas. Chicago had the finest regiment in the Fenian
army one thousand strong and nearly all veterans. In a
few hours the Irish of the city raised $40,000 for their mobili-
zation. Companies from all parts of the state were concen-
trated in Chicago, from which they moved eastward without
any attempt at interference. Oddly enough there was little
criticism of this attempt to accomplish by force, in spite of
American neutrality regulations, what might more lawfully
have been attempted by political methods. General Sweeney
I marshaled his forces in the neighborhood of Buffalo and gave
orders to strike into Canada. A foray across the international
boundary caught the Canadians unprepared and struck terror
into the peaceful population. A company of Canadian volun-
teers from Chicago was raised by the Canadian society of that
city and hurried across the border to assist in repelling the
invasion. 38 The problem, however, had taken on an inter-
national aspect and forced the intervention of the American
government. At this stage the Fenian movement collapsed
and the would-be heroes were taken into the custody of the
federal authorities.
After the fiasco certain republican papers were ready to
confess their "infinite disgust and contempt for this whole
Fenian business;" but before the attempted invasion, the only
clear-cut opponent of the Fenian brotherhood was Bishop
James Duggan of the diocese of Chicago, who placed it under
the ban of the church against secret societies. 39 So formidable
had been this Irish movement that no attempt was made within
38 Finerty, People's History of Ireland, 2:878; Chicago Evening Journal,
June 4, 22, 1866; Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1866.
30 Rockford Register, March 16, 1867; Chicago Evening Post, February 23,
March n, 1867; Rockford Gazette, September 19, 1867; Chicago Times, Feb-
ruary 3, 8, 19, March 2, 1864.
346 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the state to check it. The democrats commended the zeal for
liberty displayed by the Fenians and heaped encomiums upon
the Irish, while the republicans saw no propriety in opposing it.
Governor Yates and the state officers graced with their pres-
ence Fenian entertainments in Springfield and noticed invita-
tions to other celebrations with letters of regret commending
the principles of the organization.
The Fenians had early "disclaimed all notion of identifying
themselves with any and all political organizations outside of
the objects of the Fenian brotherhood;" 40 yet it was known
that the organization served as a powerful auxiliary to the
democratic party. A misstep by the Chicago Times in 1865
threatened this unquestioning allegiance; when that journal
inadvertently published an article criticizing and ridiculing the
types of Irish "squatters" in Chicago, the "United Sons of
Erin" under the lead of John Comiskey and various Fenian
circles denounced it as "an English spy sheet" "no longer
worthy of the patronage of any Irishman." 41 Many Irish-
men doubted whether they could go to the ballot box at the
next election and vote the "Times' ticket." The republicans
eagerly availed themselves of this opening and, with a view
of widening the rift, pointed out that by every principle of
logic the Fenian advocates of freedom for Ireland ought to
rally to the cause of freedom in this country. A recruiting
agent for the republican party was found in John Pope Hod-
nett, a talented young Irish orator, who had participated in
establishing the Irish Republic in Chicago to further both the
Fenian cause and the republican party. The anti-democratic
reaction became evident in July, 1866, when a meeting of a
number of Chicago "centres" declared that thereafter on all
occasions they would vote " for that party which finds no
excuse in musty laws, in vested rights, and ancient prejudices
for degrading and enslaving men." 42 A certain branch of
Hibernian voters conceived a strong hatred for President
Andrew Johnson, and when he stopped at Chicago on his
famous " swing around the circle," Governor Oglesby and other
40 Illinois State Register, April 4, 1865.
41 Chicago Tribune, August 10, 1865; Illinois State Journal, August 21,
24, 1865.
42 Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1866; Jollet Signal, July 17, 1866.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 347
republican moguls made bitter anti-Johnson speeches at a great
Fenian picnic at Haas' Park outside the city. 43 These latent
forces of discontent found expression in an Irish republican
vote in 1866, the harbinger of a larger republican following
in later years.
Shortly before the election of 1868 came the first significant
break in the democratic solidarity of the Irish voters. The
continued harping of the republican press upon the "tyranny"
to which the Irish tamely submitted in the democratic party
the clever insinuation that a small and corrupt native minority
blandly exploited them to get into office fanned into a blaze
the smoldering discontent of the more restive Irishmen. They
beheld certain attractions in the republican party with its fetish
of freedom for the oppressed and with its anti-British tariff
policy. In July, 1868, Hodnett, assisted by Alderman Arthur
Dixon and J. F. Scanlan, organized an Irish republican club
in Chicago to support the republican national ticket. Such a
change in political alignment called forth a vigorous protest
from standpat Irish democrats. The hall engaged by the
republicans was invaded by members of Irish democratic clubs
led by Aldermen Rafferty and Comiskey and a battle royal
took place; in the melee stones, clubs, torchlights, and sling-
shots were freely used and several persons were seriously
wounded. When similar republican clubs were organized in
other cities they encountered the same hostility from the old-
guard Irish. Nevertheless, the rebel movement could not be
stayed until a significant minority was detached ; on election day
in Chicago nearly two thousand Irish voters marched to the
polls and broke the chains that held them to the democratic
party. 44
These Irish republicans were jubilant in their new-found
freedom; on July 5 and 6, 1869, an Irish national republican
convention was held at Chicago, a nucleus which was expected
to grow into a powerful party. It was evident that these Irish
republicans looked at all questions from an anti-English stand-
point; their platform of principles, though expressing a general
43 Chicago Tribune, August 16, 17, 1866. The Irish republican leaders
included L. O. O'Connor, J. F. Scanlan, and others.
44 Illinois State Journal, August n, September 12, October 30, 1868; Chicago
Tribune, July 27, August 28, 1868.
348 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
sympathy for the downtrodden of all lands, specifically urged an
anti-British foreign policy, denounced free trade, and insisted
on the principle of protection. When they declared that free
trade was " a cunning and selfish device of the enslavers of
mankind," it was clear that they regarded a high tariff as
injurious to British industry and commerce. This was too
much even for the Chicago Tribune, which was insisting that
tariff rates were already too high and should be reduced; it,
therefore, advised the Irish republican politicians to temper
their missionary zeal with political discretion, to drop the
issues which tend to divide, and to " allow the Irish republican
party to grow a little larger by being less vigorous in the
restrictions and less crotchetty in the principles required as a
test of membership." 45
While Illinois was welcoming to its prairies the incoming
emigrant, it was in turn making contributions to the western
movement. Attracted by the gold mines of Idaho, the equable
climate of Oregon and California, and by the new free lands
of Kansas and Minnesota, Illinoisians of both native and for-
eign birth bundled their Lares and Penates into a prairie
schooner to seek their fortunes on the frontier. In another
very different way Illinois felt the influence of the western
march of the pioneer; it lay directly across the highways that
led to all parts of the northwest. These paths crossed the state
at a half dozen places. Jacksonville citizens, for instance,
could claim that " a constant tide of movers passed through
our streets, going West." 46 Chicago, however, was the usual
way station for this human traffic from the east. Hundreds of
emigrants arrived daily and as they changed cars stopped to
inspect the great metropolis of the west. They found Chicago's
ninety-four hotels continually crowded in spite of extortionate
rates. 47 Many took up residence in " the great Babylon of the
West" who had originally sought a destination far beyond.
So the city collected tolls in human lives as well as in the trade
of a great entrepot.
In the sixties Chicago nearly tripled in population, with an
45 Chicago Tribune, July 7, 9, 1869.
48 Illinois State Journal, October 15, 1868.
47 Chicago Times, November 23, 1863, June 29, 1865; Chicago Tribune,
May 28, 1867.
POPULATION IN WARTIME 349
increase of 298,977, nearly one-half of which was of foreign
birth. In spite of the fact that after 1866 business conditions
were very discouraging in the other large cities of the country,
Chicago prospered mightily. Buildings to the value of seven
million dollars were erected in 1865, and the following years
building was prosecuted with even more vigor; by the end of
the decade, Chicago was running wild in real estate specu-
lation. 48
With its fine public buildings and private dwellings the
city began to take on the true metropolitan atmosphere. A
park was developed from Twelfth to Thirty-first street and
the present Lincoln park system on the north side was started;
at the same time the people of the western and southern divi-
sions prepared to press their claims for civic improvement
for it became an accepted argument that without parks "no
city is respectable or decent or fit to be the dwelling-place of
men and women." Concrete sidewalks made their appear-
ance, a wonderful improvement over the plank walks. Wabash
and Michigan avenues were widened into fine drives lined with
elegant residences, though the business district at the same
time began, to work eastward and to threaten, encroachment
upon these aristocratic boulevards. The streets were lighted
by 2,500 gas street lamps, making it one of the best lighted
cities of the country; this involved an annual expense of
$75,000, however, which aroused an active movement in 'favor
of the municipalization of this utility. The city was networked
by an elaborate system of horse railway lines that ran along
the chief thoroughfares; in 1865 they secured a ninety-nine
year lease from the state legislature in spite of the veto of
Governor Oglesby and the opposition of the Chicago Tribune
to "the gigantic swindle." A few years later service was so
inadequate that an. elevated or "second-story" railway was
advocated similar to the one then being experimented upon in
New York. 49
48 Chicago Tribune, August 21, November 10, 1866, July 20, August 3, 1869;
Chicago Evening Journal, November 25, 1865; Aurora Beacon, March 4, 1869.
This included the new depot of the Michigan Southern and Rock Island railroads.
49 Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1866, January 8, 9, u, 16, February 19, 21,
1867, February 26, March 21, 1869; Chicago Times, May 7, 1864; Chicago
Evening Journal, March 8, 186$,
350 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Squalor and filth continued to litter the streets and com-
bined with slaughterhouses to poison the air. "Everybody
understands," insisted the Chicago Tribune, "that we have
the foulest streets, the dirtiest river, the most inefficient police,
the most nauseous water, the most fogyish Board of Public
Works and Board of Health in the world, unless we look for
their equal in Turkey, China, and Dahomey." 50 Finally, in
October, 1866, after intermittent cases during the summer,
cholera assailed the city in such a serious epidemic that a
reorganization of the board of health under state legislative
authority was made imperative. In 1866, too, a supply of
fresh water was guaranteed by the completion of a. tunnel
running out two miles under Lake Michigan.
The prosperity of Chicago was the outgrowth of its supe-
rior transportation facilities. The city, now fifth among Amer-
ican cities in the volume of business, was not only the greatest
grain, beef, and pork market in the country but the greatest
lumber market as well; 51 asthmatic sawmills in Michigan and
Wisconsin laboriously coughed out the cargoes of boards which
were brought to Chicago by the three hundred lumber carriers
that plied Lake Michigan. All the old advantages derived
from lake navigation were enlarged by important additions
to the harbor facilities along the lake front. When with the
increase of railroad freight tariffs, St. Louis, with the natural
advantages of its location on the Mississippi and with railroad
connections of its own, threatened to draw more heavily upon
the trade of the northwest, Chicago awoke to the importance
of a navigable watercourse to the Mississippi river; through-
out the decade its citizens- urged the project of a ship canal
which would guarantee its hegemony. The Pacific railroad
also promised much for the future of the city; in order to be
independent of tribute to the jobbers of San Francisco and
New York, a bill was pressed upon congress to make Chicago
a formal port of entry. 52
50 Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1865, January 10, August 28, 1867; Chicago
Evening Journal, November 15, 1865, February 10, 1866.
^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 54:376-384; The Lumber Industry of
Chicago, 7-8; Howe, Yearbook of Chicago, 1885, p. 241-243; Chicago Times,
March 19, 1866, October 9, 1872; Chicago Evening Journal, November 17, 1865.
58 Chicago Tribune, July i, December 25, 1868,
POPULATION IN WARTIME 351
Life in the other cities of the state began to quicken under
the influence of the prosperity of Chicago. Peoria, with a
population of 22,849, lost its place as second city and Quincy
with 24,052 inhabitants succeeded to this position. Springfield
nearly doubled in the decade to reach the figure of 17,364,
while Aurora, Galesburg, and Jacksonville trailed some dis-
tance behind. Galena was the only important community of
1860 to experience a decline it suffered a net loss of over
one thousand. One important development was the rise of
East St. Louis, incorporated in 1865; the atmosphere of old
Illinoistown with " its disreputable floating population and its
sink holes of iniquity where the moral filth of St. Louis could
take refuge, to plan its deeds of crime " gave way to a thrifty
and enterprising young town of 5,644- 53 In general, all these
communities were prosperous and enlightened and were pass-
ing through a process of refinement which bespoke a steady
modernization. This was especially true of Springfield, which
awakened to its responsibilities when the demand for a removal
of the capital was renewed by rivals like Peoria, Decatur, and
Jacksonville.
The Civil War gave to Cairo the opportunity to realize
on the promises brought by the building of the Illinois Central;
inasmuch as it would be a feeder for Chicago, all Illinoisians
had insisted that it was the most convenient depot for the
distribution of the supplies for the army in the west. The
advantages of this base became obvious in the winter of 1863
1864, when ice and low water closed the river below St. Louis
and made Cairo the head of navigation on the Father of
Waters. Business became brisk immediately: "Every house,
cellar and shed on the levee, from one extreme of the town
to the other, is occupied as a place of business and every occu-
pant .... is doing well." 54 At times buildings were
almost unobtainable; "little shanties that people would not
look at anywhere else, bring three or four hundred dollars
per year, paying as much per cent, on their actual cost." 55
Five thousand steamers arrived each year to land and discharged
53 Belleville Advocate, January 12, 1866.
54 Cairo Gazette, August 20, 1864; Cairo Democrat, January 8, 1864; Mark
Skinner to Trumbull, May 31, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
55 Cairo Democrat, September 6, 1863.
352 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
their freight and passengers at Cairo and probably a million
or more soldiers passed through the city during the war. The
first fear of a prostration of business upon the withdrawal of
government patronage after the war was succeeded by a lofty
idealism which pointed to the geographical advantages in loca-
tion and forecast a continuous position as the natural depot
of exchange between the north and south an emporium
rivaling the great metropolis of the lakes. The last two years
of the decade, however, showed the futility of this hope; the
city had increased from 2,188 to ten or twelve thousand in
1867, but two years later the census enumerators could locate
only 6,267 persons, and Cairo did not pass the 10,000 mark
again until well toward the close of the century.
Why did Cairo fail to realize the expectations of the
latter day prophets? Cairo was a house built upon mud;
when the storms came and rain fell and the wind blew, por-
tions of the city joined the murky waters of the Mississippi.
True, the work of raising and widening the levee to save the
bustling city, went on, so that in the flood years of 1862 and
1867 the levees held back the tide, while all the surrounding
country was one vast expanse of water spread out like a sea.
Yet flood conditions produced a menacing fear which endan-
gered the future growth of the city. Rival communities chose
to play upon this fear and coupled with it the general belief
in the unhealthiness of Cairo. It availed little in meeting this
impression that Dr. G. T. Allen, federal medical inspector,
was able to report that " with filth enough in many of its streets
to poison all the population of New York City, during the
summer solstice, it is even then, in my opinion, as healthy as
any place in the Union." With water everywhere, Cairo had
at times literally not a drop to drink, except as it was hauled
into the city in barrels to be retailed at from ten to twenty
cents a pint. 56
Chicago, the fulfillment of prophecy, the great city on the
58 Cairo Democrat, February 17, 1864. See also Cairo Daily News, August
20, 1864: "Our streets, highways and byways abound, at the present writing,
with a profusion of a slippery, sticky substance known to those who are familiar
with its qualities as Cairo mud. It is found on the sidewalks and off the side-
walks, inside the house and outside the house in the kitchen, parlor and bed
chamber. No place is sacred from its intrusive visits, and it succumbs only to
the sun and wind."
POPULATION IN WARTIME 353
lakes, and Cairo, the city of blasted hopes, were the opposite
poles of this great magnet in the middle west which was
attracting the restive population of all parts of the globe.
XVI. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, 1860-1870
MODERN industry in Illinois is built upon the foundations
laid in the tumultuous era of civil strife. The transpor-
tation phase was marked by the extension to a point of greater
adequacy of rail and water communication. During the war
water transportation again became the great hope of all Illi-
noisians; they expected to revolutionize transportation facili-
ties by improving the navigation of the Mississippi, Illinois,
and Rock rivers and by building a ship canal to the Mississippi.
They urged federal aid for the accomplishment of their ends
and justified it as necessary to the efficient transportation of
supplies and to the triumph of the federal arms. All projects
found only local support, however, except as they connected
themselves with the proposed ship canal. At first this meant
merely the enlarging of the Illinois and Michigan canal so
as to end the prevailing low water problems and permit the
passage of ships of large draught between the Great Lakes
and the Mississippi. The disunion crisis further emphasized
the need, in order to reverse the course of trade and direct the
products of the upper Mississippi eastward instead of toward
the gulf. When war closed the Mississippi below Cairo the
need became more definite. In the legislative session of 1861
the general assembly authorized an investigation of the possi-
bility of an enlarged canal; when a favorable report was made
appeals were sent to congress for federal aid. 1 The consti-
tutional convention of 1862 unanimously adopted a formal
memorial to congress; other memorials were sent in, including
one from the Chicago Board of Trade.
In February, 1862, Colonel F. P. Blair, Jr., of the com-
1 1 Laws of 1861, p. 277-278; R. P. Mori to Trumbull, June 6, 1861, Trum-
bull manuscripts; Prairie Farmer, November 24, 1861 ; Joliet Signal, November
19, 1861 ; Ottawa Free Trader, November 23, 1861 ; Ottawa Weekly Repub-
lican, November 30, 1861. In November, 1861, public meetings were held to
call attention to the importance of this project.
354
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 355
mittee on military affairs of the house, reported a bill for the
enlargement of the canal so that gunboats and other vessels
drawing six feet of water might pass from the Mississippi to
the lakes. 2 By this time the matter was squarely before con-
gress. Representative Arnold from the Chicago district, a
member of the committee on roads and canals, assumed the
leadership of the Illinois delegation and made a favorable
report to the house. In July, however, the project was killed
on a test vote in which the eastern members lined up against
the representatives of the west. Governor Yates, not to be thus
silenced, then pressed the matter upon the attention of the
president; in November he went to Washington for a joint
interview in the company of Congressman Arnold. The war
department was directed to examine into the practicability of
the undertaking; meantime, the canal project was again pressed
upon the attention of congress. 3
Eastern selfishness, the canal advocates claimed, was giving
force to the movement for the separation of the western from
the eastern states and the formation of a northwestern con-
federacy. Even republican leaders declared that governmental
policy was destroying the value of the agricultural products of
the west, while manufactured articles from the east doubled
and quadrupled in price. This discrimination could be removed
by a restoration of the natural exchange of commodities by
easy channels of commerce; and the canal was, therefore, a
political as well as a military necessity. Governor Yates at
the suggestion of western business and farming interests went
so far as to send a commission to Canada to arrange for a
Canadian route to the seaboard. 4
While congress was wrestling with this problem, Arnold
and other ship canal advocates arranged for a great national
canal convention at Chicago to express the interests of the
west. This body met on June 2 and 3, 1863, with Vice Presi-
dent Hamlin in the chair; it set out to secure the right of the
2 Congressional Globe, 37 congress, 2 session, 902-903.
3 Illinois State Journal, September 17, November 22, 1862.
4 Ibid., January 15, March 10, 31, April 20, 1863; Aurora Beacon, Novem-
ber 13, 1861 ; Chicago Tribune, November 27, December 23, 1862, June 2, 1863.
Eastern transportation interests were said to be conspiring to prevent either
waterways in the northwest or an aggressive policy to accomplish the reopening
of the Mississippi.
356 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
states of the Mississippi valley to " national recognition as
coequal sovereignties of the Great Republic." 5 It did not
confine itself to the Illinois canal plan but adopted resolutions
in favor of constructing different ship canals to connect the
lakes with the Mississippi and the Atlantic. Although this
was not exactly what Illinoisians wanted, yet, as the measure
in congress had been given this larger scope, they welcomed
the indorsement as a forward step. Again, however, congress
took no action: not until January, 1865, was Arnold able to
secure favorable action on the bill by the lower house; then
the senate refused to lend its assistance, and with the close of
the war one of the strongest arguments for federal aid came
to an end. A survey was made, however, by the war depart-
ment in 1867, and, though the engineers recommended the
project, no action was taken. 6 Although traffic on the canal
was declining rapidly, later efforts to secure federal action also
failed to bear fruit.
The ship canal fever included a number of projects of more
daring scope. In 1866 a widespread movement took place
for the extension of the Illinois and Michigan canal to the
Mississippi river at a point near Rock Island, 7 and a local
following boomed a scheme for a ship canal from the Rock
river to Lake Michigan. A series of conventions at Sterling,
Geneseo, Dixon, Rock Island, Morris, and other points enthu-
siastically urged ship canals and river improvement. Some
even advocated a canal under federal auspices around Niagara
Falls to open up a more satisfactory route to Europe.
The only tangible result that followed from all this activity
was the act of the Illinois legislature of February 28, 1867,
under which the state inaugurated the work of improving the
canal and the Illinois river channel. As a sop to the advocates
of other water routes the act referred to but made no provi-
sion for an extension of the canal to the Mississippi at Rock
Island and the improvement of the Rock and other rivers.
5 " The West," declared the Chicago Tribune, June 2, 1863, "will hence-
forth be a partner in the Union, entitled to all the immunities and privileges of
her place."
8 Ibid., June 3, 4, 1863, July 20, 1867; Putnam, Illinois and Michigan Canal,
135; House Executive Documents, 40 congress, i session, number 16.
7 Chicago Tribune, January 6, 8, 10, 17, 23, 1866; Chicago Evening Journal,
January 8, 1866.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 357
The strength of the agitation for water transportation
reflected not so much the absence of rail communication as the
dissatisfaction with the service which the railroads were fur-
nishing. Some of the canal and river meetings were held as
anti-monopoly conventions under the auspices of the movement
which the farmers launched against the enormous freight tariffs
of the railroads. The agriculturists claimed that they were
at the mercy of the railroads, while Chicagoans held that these
rates were "damaging Chicago to a degree that it is difficult to
compute." 8
There was a strong survival in Illinois of the sixties of
the old frontier fear and hatred of monopoly; the railroad
symbolized this hydra headed monster whose inroads had been
dreaded since the days of Andrew Jackson. When the rail-
roads, deprived of the competition of the Mississippi water
route and encouraged by general economic and monetary con-
ditions, steadily increased their passenger and freight rates to a
point that seemed extortionate, a note of alarm and protest was
sounded which showed the crystallization of widespread dis-
satisfaction; the year 1865 saw the crest of a high rate wave
with a corresponding amount of complaint and indignation. 9
Transportation charges on shipments from Minnesota, Wis-
consin, and Iowa, it was said, were retarding the development
of the state and threatening the prosperity of the lake cities.
The railroads were flourishing on tariffs like twenty-five cents
on a bushel of wheat from Winona to Chicago ; indeed, rates
sometimes amounted virtually to an embargo upon the ship-
ment of cereals by this route and forced trade to go through
St. Louis and down the Mississippi river. Through freight,
moreover, was often handled more reasonably than freight
between two intermediary points.
A rumor began to spread of a great upper Mississippi
railroad and steamboat combination; thereupon, two hundred
and twenty of the leading mercantile houses of Chicago ad-
dressed a questionnaire to the railroad companies to learn
whether they were in partnership with the elevators of the city,
6 Ibid., November 27, 1865.
9 Ibid., December 18, 1865; Cairo Weekly Democrat, January 19, 1865;
Paxton Record, June 22, 1865; Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1865.
358 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
with express and transportation companies, or steamboat lines
upon routes leading to Chicago, in such a way as to involve
restraint of trade. The failure of the railroads to reply was
interpreted as an admission of the combination; complaints
became even more general and were summarized in February,
1866, in a report of a joint committee of the Chicago Board
of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Association. 10
The result was a state wide revolt against the railway
and warehouses "monopolies." In northern Illinois, farmers'
mass meetings and commercial conventions urged that provi-
sion be made for new waterways and that the railway lines of
the state be subjected to careful legislative regulation. As
early as 1864, rate regulation had been proposed by farmers'
organizations and in January, 1865, William Brown of Win-
nebago had proposed in the legislature a resolution subjecting
all new railroads to a general law regulating freight and pas-
senger rates. Within a year the demand for rate regulation
became general; the supervisors of Winnebago county passed
resolutions declaring that they would support no man for office
who was not pledged to use his influence for the correction of
this abuse. 11
In January, 1867, the anti-monopoly forces came together
at Springfield and formed a league which demanded of the
legislature restrictions on railroad combinations, uniformity
of freight rates, a three-cent passenger fare, and an annual
report of expenditures and receipts of each road. Bills were
promptly introduced into the legislature; but the railroad inter-
ests, aided by the unwillingness of downstate rail advocates
to place any obstacles in the way of their own ambitions,
blocked all attempts at legislation. In 1869 the cudgel was
again taken up against the railroads. The blow was tempered,
however, by a challenge at the constitutionality of such rate-
fixing legislation. Southern Illinois spokesmen also pointed
out that, since it would apply only to roads thereafter incor-
10 Chi cag o Tribune, December 15, 26, 1865; January n, 12, 1866; Central
Illinois Gazette, January 19, 1866; Illinois State Register, January 12, 1866;
Chicago Evening Journal, February 14, 1866.
11 Prairie Farmer, December 24, 1864; Rockford Register, January 28, 1865;
Ottawa Weekly Republican, January 28, 1865; Chicago Tribune, February 10,
1865; Illinois State Register, January 3, 1866.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 359
porated, its sole effect would be to prevent the construction of
new lines. A maximum rate bill introduced into the senate
by General A. C. Fuller passed both houses but was vetoed
by Governor Palmer; thereupon Senator Fuller introduced a
new measure limiting all roads in the state to a "just, reason-
able, and uniform" rate; this became law and went into force
on March 10, 1869. The war between the people and the
railroad ring continued and a point for the people was
scored in the restrictions imposed by the new constitution of
iSyo. 12
The remedy most strongly favored by the anti-monopolists
was additional transportation facilities. Besides waterways
new railway lines were welcomed to open up competition with
those that were charged with indiscriminate pillage. Little,
however, could be done in northern Illinois, which was domi-
nated by the Chicago and Northwestern railway; this com-
pany, chartered in 1854 under the Illinois and Wisconsin laws,
had first taken up the rights and franchises of the Chicago, St.
Paul, and Fond du Lac railway company, then in 1864, after
unsuccessful attempts to force out the Galena and Chicago
Union railroad by competition, a consolidation of the two sys-
tems as arranged. A little later under the control of Henry
Keep of New York and his associates, the Northwestern line
absorbed the Chicago and Milwaukee railroad and with a mile-
age of 1,152 became the largest railway corporation in the
United States; in 1868 evidence was published of a scheme
to consolidate the Chicago and Northwestern, the Chicago and
Rock Island, and the Milwaukee and St. Paul under one man-
agement; this, said the Chicago Tribune, "would practically
deliver the whole territory north and west of Chicago over
to the tender mercies of a Wall street ring." 13 Simultaneous
with the election of three of the managers of the Milwaukee
and St. Paul to the directorate of the Northwestern road, the
Northwestern corporation tried to secure a majority of the
12 Chicago Tribune, January 14, February 12, 19, March 13, December 6,
1869; Illinois State Journal, January 15, 1869; Cairo Evening Bulletin, January
16, 1869; Ottawa Free Trader, January 15, 1870; Ottawa Weekly Republican,
June 30, December i, 1870; Laws of 1869, p. 309-312.
13 Chicago Tribune, March 6, June 4, 5, 1868, June 10, 1869; Chicago Times,
June 2, 1864.
360 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
stock of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific. It was no
wonder that the people clamored for competing waterways,
the only competition possible.
Southern Illinois, meanwhile, had been passing through
another attack of the periodic railroad fever, and was now
able to gratify some of its cravings for more railroads. In-
numerable schemes were afloat many of which secured legis-
lative sanction; work was commenced on twelve distinct roads,
but only the more stable and conservative ventures were suc-
cessfully executed; 14 through these, however, the railroad
mileage of the southern third of the state was nearly doubled.
The old St. Louis and Terre Haute project, revived and char-
tered in 1865 as the St. Louis, Vandalia, and Terre Haute
railroad, was completed and opened in 1870. The Springfield
and Illinois Southeastern was chartered in 1867; and the con-
nection between the state capital and Shawneetown, except for
the short link between Pana and Edgewood, was completed
within the decade. The extension of the Belleville and Illinois-
town toward Du Quoin produced the Belleville and Southern
Illinois road which was not ready for use, however, until 1873.
Plans were also well under way for a road between Cairo and
Vincennes which was finished in 1872.
The central part of the state was almost equally fortunate
in its new connections. The Toledo, Wabash, and Western
was extended across Pike county to Hannibal, Missouri; and
the St. Louis, Jacksonville, and Chicago between Blooming-
ton and St. Louis, was opened for business in January, 1868,
under a lease to the Chicago and Alton railroad. In 1869 the
Indianapolis, Bloomington, and Western opened between Pekin
and Danville. The western part of the state was traversed
lengthwise by the Rockford, Rock Island, and St. Louis rail-
road which was finished in 1869 and soon became part of the
Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, a vast railroad combina-
tion which was steadily absorbing the roads of western Illinois.
These larger systems built many branch lines most of which
fell within the central tiers of counties. In many instances
local connections were incorporated in the larger systems.
14 Cairo Evening Bulletin, June 23, 1869; Ottawa Weekly Republican, July
8, 1869; Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1869.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 361
By 1869 the mileage of Illinois roads had increased to
4,031 and Illinois remained the second railroad state in the
union. 15
One of the most significant developments of the decade was
the building of the Pacific railroad. Illinoisians had always
had a special interest in a trans-Atlantic rail line, especially a
central route. This had been a leading factor in Douglas'
eagerness to secure the organization of the territory of Ne-
braska in 1854; his opponents, moreover, had used a strong
Pacific railroad plank in constructing the platform of the new
republican party. When the Civil War created a new military
demand, congress gave its approval to the undertaking and
the president decided in favor of a Chicago connection. The
effect upon such lines as the Chicago and Rock Island and the
Galena and Chicago was immediate; the stock of the former
rose twenty points in a few weeks. The Northwestern rail-
way company, using the old Galena and Chicago air line to the
Iowa boundary, was the first to complete an Omaha connec-
tion. In 1868, the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific under-
took to build an extension of its line to Council Bluffs. At
once Chicago began to tap the trade of the far west and in
1869, when the trans-Atlantic route was completed, an excur-
sion of business men left Chicago for San Francisco to examine
into the possibilities of commercial relations with the Pacific
coast and the orient. 16
Banking and currency problems divided with transportation
the responsibility for clearing the way for the industrial pros-
perity of Illinois. The banks had just completed their recov-
ery from the panic of 1857 when the sectional crisis precipi-
tated by Lincoln's election brought the threat of financial
chaos. Since the circulation of the state banks was mainly
predicated upon southern securities, the banking interests at
first reacted very conservatively and even recommended sacri-
fices of principle to pacify the south. The free banking system
15 Poor's Manual, xliv-xlv. The Rushville Times, June 4, 1870, estimated
the Illinois mileage at 5,200.
18 Ottawa Free Trader, January 9, 1863, June 26, 1866; Chicago Tribune,
October n, 1866, July i, 1869; James H. Bowen et al. to Trumbull, June 14,
1869, Trumbull manuscripts. The Chicago Board of Trade formally indorsed
a Northern Pacific railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound. Chicago
Evening Journal, April 23, 1866.
362 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
had created a machine for the issue of a circulating medium
which was now endangered by the decline of southern securities.
The banking commissioners in November, 1860, called for
more securities from twenty-two banks, but before they were
due the rapid drop of southern stocks had involved all but the
fourteen or fifteen banks that had deposited northern state
bonds. 17 Only the notes of these banks remained in circula-
tion; the other paper was driven out and the auditor retired
and destroyed the issues presented for redemption. Some
specie, too, was forced out of its hiding places, and some for-
eign issues remained in the field, although their circulation
was attacked.
The general assembly attempted to adjust the banking
system to the new conditions under the banking amendment
of February 14, 1861. This law provided for a central re-
demption system and quarterly reports, and restricted securities
for deposits to United States and Illinois stocks. In conse-
quence by the end of the year, Illinois bonds constituted the
vast bulk of the holdings of the auditor. On the whole, how-
ever, this law failed to receive a fair trial. The large volume
of federal greenbacks together with the later issues of national
bank notes came to monopolize the field. By 1865 the office
of bank commissioner was abolished and only $200,000 in
state bank paper was circulated by twenty-three banks. On
August i, 1866, the federal tax on state bank notes succeeded
in driving from circulation most of what remained. In 1869
the auditor's report showed only $531 in outstanding bank
notes. 18
In this way a system designed during the fifties to furnish
Illinois with a supply of local bank notes collapsed under the
double strain of the break with the south and of the compe-
tition with the new currency issues of the federal government.
The national banking system received a hearty welcome from
the business men of the state, and state banks learned to adjust
themselves to the necessity of confining their operations to the
17 Illinois State Register, November 16, 1860; Chicago Tribune, November
20, 1860; Rockford Republican, November 22, 1860; Joliet Signal, November 27,
1860; Central Illinois Gazette, November 28, 1860.
18 Reports General Assembly, 1867, 1:115; l86 9 * : 324; f Laws of 1861,
p. 39 ff.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 363
receiving and transmitting of money and to a loan and discount
business.
In the spring of 1862 the stream of greenbacks or federal
legal tender notes began to flow into Illinois. There was little
realization, however, on the part of citizens as to the signifi-
cance of this influx. The previous winter had been extremely
dull, the bottom had dropped out of the market. . Now prices
pushed up, trade became brisk, and prosperity seemed to pre-
vail. A heavy demand was current for small change to which
the government responded by authorizing the issue of a " frac-
tional postage currency." Its distribution was managed ineffi-
ciently, however, and bankers found it necessary to secure
consignments through senatorial intervention. 19 The govern-
ment outlawed the use of tokens and checks which business
houses issued to furnish a currency of small denominations.
With the steady depreciation of the greenback, gold and silver
disappeared from circulation and high prices began to prevail.
For a time, however, the farmer complained of the great dis-
parity between the price of his produce and the manufactured
articles that he had to secure by purchase; the eastern money
changers seemed to be deriving the peculiar advantages from
these developments. Two years later, however, wheat was
well over $2.00 with other agricultural products in proportion,
a partial compensation for the fact that gold was approaching
the 250 mark. 20 With the victories that closed the war the
greenback recovered considerably in value, but prices remained
ruinously high. The advocates of contraction placed the blame
on the superabundance of money; yet in 1867 dull times and
lower prices set in again without any explanation in a reduced
supply of money. When contraction was suggested dozens
of Chicago business men were found to oppose it. An outcry
went up against heavy taxes. " The honest white men of the
country are taxed and retaxed over and over again from the
cradle to the grave, and are then taxed one dollar for dying,"
19 E. March to Trumbull, November 28, December 6, 1862, J. Young Scam-
mon to Trumbull, December 5, 15, 1862, R. Hinckley to Trumbull, December 13,
1862, Edward Abend to Trumbull, December 24, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
20 Ottawa Free Trader, July 2, 1864; Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1864;
Joliet Signal, December 16, 1862. The general increase in the cost of living
was between two hundred and three hundred per cent.
364 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
complained the Carthage Republican.^ Discrimination against
the western agricultural states in internal revenue assessments
was claimed at an early day; later when a tax of two dollars
on a gallon of whisky threatened to decrease the consumption
of grain, a general protest went up. A large body of repub-
licans also agreed with the democrats that on the tariff the
west was being " consumed by the good of New England &
Pennsylvania" and a readjustment seemed essential. 22
Then, however, the eastern creditors called up the cur-
rency issue in a new form by insisting on the payment of the
interest on the federal debt in gold rather than in the legal
tender paper. Illinois agriculturalists opposed the idea of
special favors for "bloated bond-holders." The democratic
party gained strength in 1868 when it seemed that George H.
Pendleton would be nominated on his western greenback policy.
When, however, he was rejected at New York for a hard
money candidate, the issue was postponed to a later period
in national politics.
Industrially, Illinois on the eve of the Civil War showed
many frontier survivals; another decade, however, worked
out a revolution that brought the state to the threshold of
modern industrialism. The extended transportation system
was one of the greatest factors in stimulating this progress;
the other factors proceeded from the war itself. The war,
in bringing high prices for grain and livestock, in bestowing
protective duties that far surpassed the rosiest dreams of infant
industry, gave a remarkable impetus to manufacturing indus-
tries. Cook county in 1860 had only 469 manufactories; an-
other decade and this number had more than tripled. 23 In the
same period the manufacturing establishments of the state
had increased from 4,268 to 12,597 with the value of manu-
21 Carthage Republican, June 27, 1867; E. W. Blatchford to Trumbull,
February 27, 1867, Trumbull manuscripts; Aurora Beacon, February 7, 1867;
Cairo Democrat, May 25, 1865, May 23, August 9, 1867; Illinois Democrat,
December 21, 1867; Chicago Times, June 24, 1865; Illinois State Journal, July
24, 1865. Board in Chicago was ten to fifteen dollars per week.
22 Chicago Times, April 23, 1864; Illinois State Register, April 28, 1866;
Chicago Tribune, August i, 1867, March 27, June n, 1868; E. Peck to Trum-
bull, April 24, 1866, C. H. Ray to Trumbull, February 2, 1866, Trumbull
manuscripts.
23 Schoff, Industrial Interests of Chicago; Chamberlin, Chicago and Its
Suburbs, 136-137,
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 365
factured products rising from $57,580,886 to $205,620,672.
The number of operatives employed in the state increased from
5>593 to 82,979. These figures tell the story of a revolution
which, after having broken out in England a century before,
had irrepressibly swept on and on until it reached the prairies
of Illinois.
The focusing point of the manufactures as well as of the
railroads was Cook county. In 1870, although it contained
just one-ninth of the establishments in the state, it listed about
one-half of the employees; the industries, therefore, were not
only more numerous but were organized on a larger scale.
Chicago became a center for the manufacture of iron products,
which received special protection under the tariff schedules;
in 1860 there were 26 iron works in the city which increased
in the decade to over a hundred, including about one-quarter
of the capital invested in manufacturing. The large output
of farm implements and machinery reflected the demand of the
agricultural population of the northwest; Peter Schuttler's
wagon manufactory, established in 1843, was known from
Texas to Oregon, and McCormick's reaper works which were
moved to Chicago in 1847 supplied a wide demand among west-
ern farmers. A factory started by Furst and Bradley in 1851
for the production of plows and other farm machinery was
doing a thriving business before i86o. 24 Wood works to
supply the building trades were second in importance followed
by combined wood and iron establishments. Brick, stone,
metal, and terra cotta works, together with leather plants, and
textile factories were important in the industrial development
of the city.
The milling of flour and grist was one manufacturing field
that Chicago was gradually yielding to the smaller cities and
towns of the state. In this field as well as in some of the other
fundamental needs of farming communities, no serious attempt
was made at large scale production; but the smaller centers
were left both to supply the local demand and to export the
surplus.
Every population center was ambitious to share in the new
prosperity. Illinois claimed certain peculiar advantages for
44 Western Manufacturer, May supplement, 1874.
3 66 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
manufacturing nearness to the supply of foodstuffs, of raw
material for the factories, and of coal for steam power; the
cheapness of these commodities tended to offset the lower rates
for capital and labor that prevailed in the east. Every city
talked of its available coal deposits, its water power, or other
advantages; in Peoria and elsewhere business organizations
to promote their respective communities soon began to appear.
A committee of Bloomington citizens studied the manufactur-
ing towns of Ohio and pointed out ways and means to
secure the same advantages to their own town; communi-
ties competed with each other in offers to secure new in-
dustries. 25
Quincy, the second city in the state, specialized in stove
foundries ; during the war an important tobacco industry devel-
oped there by transfer from Missouri. 26 Peoria's prosperity
was well grounded upon the distillery business; it had four
distilleries in 1856, six in 1859, an< ^ nme ^ n I ^73- By 1871,
moreover, it had two corn planter factories, two plow and
cultivator establishments, and one starch factory. 27 Rockford
claimed to have a manufacturing output of $3,000,000 per
year. The other towns of 5,000 or over usually had grist and
saw mills, a foundry and machine shop, a woolen factory, a
wagon or plow factory, and certain more highly specialized
establishments. 28 Certain communities boasted of rather
unique manufacturing lines. The National Watch Company
established its factory at Elgin in 1864; five years later the
first watch factory at Springfield was established. La Salle had
a flourishing zinc works and in 1866 the manufacture of glass
was revived there in the only glass factory in the west; soon
Ottawa promoters, headed by J. D. Caton, started to raise the
25 At the beginning of the decade republicans advocated a protective tariff
to foster manufactures; soon there was a surfeit and even the democrats urged
the people to " quit raising corn and go to manufacturing " as " the true remedy
for New England robbery." Ottawa Free Trader, October 14, 1865; Carthage
Republican, January 18, May 3, 1866; Paxton Record, December u, 1869;
Ottawa Republican, December 15, 1870.
28 Western Agriculturist, 11:6, 10; The City of Quincy, Illinois, 18-19.
27 Western Manufacturer, 9:4; Board of Trade of Peoria, Report, 1873, p.
31; Dwyer, "Manufactures in Illinois," Department of Agriculture of Illinois,
Transactions, 9 : 87.
28 Over a dozen firms manufactured plows on a large scale. Prairie Farmer,
December 10, 1864.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 367
stock for a rival glass factory at that place. 29 Bloomington was
unique in the possession of a melodeon factory.
Under the stimulus of war prices every town of any size
made an effort to secure a woolen factory; at the end of the
decade the census enumerators found twenty-four wool carding
and cloth dressing establishments and eighty-five woolen mills
in Illinois, many at obscure points like Dayton, Lacon, Augusta,
and Fairbury. They represented an investment of $3,600,000
and employed 3,460 operators, one-fourth of whom were
women. 30 This incursion into a new field met with limited
success: almost all the new establishments were erected after
the close of the war, yet before the seventies some of these
were compelled to shut down. Cotton manufacturing, another
venture that seemed equally promising, collapsed even morel
promptly; Henry W. Fuller of Chicago headed a concern to
erect a factory in that city; in 1865, after two years of
preparation, the Chicago Cotton Manufacturing Company
secured an act of incorporation only to die a lingering death.
The first cotton factory ever set in operation in Illinois was
completed at Rockford in the summer of i867; 31 Rockford
had the only two establishments of the kind at the, end of the
decade.
Even these unsuccessful ventures into new fields testified
to the industrial revolution. By the method of trial and failure
the commonwealth that had in five decades risen from the wil-
derness ranked first among the states in its flour and gristmills
and in its sirup and molasses factories, second in its manufac
tories of agricultural implements, and fourth in the number
of establishments for the manufacture of carriages and wagons,
29 Ottawa Free Trader, October 21, 1865, November 2, 1869; La Salle Press
clipped in Central Illinois Gazette, December 22, 1865; Illinois State Journal,
March 7, 1866.
30 Ibid., March 2, 1866; Central Illinois Gazette, March 3, 1866; Champaign
County Union and Gazette, July 21, 1869; Illinois State Agricultural Society,
Transactions, 8:180. The woolgrowers, anxious to maintain the price of their
product urged a protective tariff on the raw wool, but at the Cleveland wool
tariff convention of 1866 the Illinois delegation recommended that the Illinois
legislature pass a bill exempting from taxation all capital invested in woolen
and cotton mills. Chicago Tribune, November 16, 27, 1866; Jacksonville Journal,
November 19, 1866.
^Prairie Farmer, January 24, 1863; Chicago Tribune, January 16,
1866; Chicago Evening Journal, February 5, 1866; Rockford Gazette, Decem-
ber 31, 1868.
368 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
of saddlery and harness, of tin, copper, and sheet iron, of
cooperage, of furniture, and even of millinery.
The Civil War decade also opened up some of the more
important mineral wealth of the state in 1861 the general
assembly had passed an act to encourage mining in Illinois. 32
The use of coal in locomotives and manufacturing establish-
ments caused a new stir in the coal fields. Informed by the
state geological survey of 1860 that coal might be had for
the digging anywhere in the state from Kane county to Cairo,
prospectors appeared in every community to estimate the com-
mercial value of the deposits. As a result the number of coal
mines increased from 73 to 322 while the coal output of the
state increased from 728,400 tons in 1860 to 2,624,163
in 1870.
The most thrilling event in the industrial world was the
discovery of petroleum. In the early months of 1865, after
important oil strikes at points between Knox, Jackson, and
Lawrence counties, the excitement rose to such a pitch that it
infected all parts of the state. " Petroleum is a fever, an itch,
a mania, a madness with some," declared the Chicago Journal.
" The very air is full of oil, the very pavement is slippery with
it, as it were. All a man's five senses are assailed, conquered,
carried by it. We cannot help seeing it, nor hearing it, nor
feeling it, nor tasting, nor smelling it." 33 Little was accom-
plished, however, in the way of utilizing commercially this new
resource.
One of the difficulties in the way of industrial development
was the labor problem. The war had drawn off a large portion
of the working population of the state and created a shortage
of labor that not only raised wages everywhere but made
skilled labor unobtainable for new enterprises. Yet increased
wages could not keep pace with the rapidly increased cost of
living. By 1864 living expenses had increased from 50 to 300
per cent, while wages had risen only 15 to 100 per cent. The
burdens of war, therefore, fell more heavily upon the workers
than upon any other class. An effort was made to solve this
difficulty by introducing the principle of cooperative buying on
82 / Lavs of 1861, p. 146.
83 Clipped in Belleville Advocate, February 24, 1865
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ,369
the English plan ; since there was no opportunity, however, to
carry it beyond the experimental stage, it could not relieve
the general situation. 34
The result was a stimulus to organization such as never
existed in the history of the state. Before the war organized
labor had been represented almost exclusively by German
workingmen's associations. German tailors, carpenters, and
wagoners associations had been in existence in Chicago for
some time and in 1857 the Chicago Arbeiter Verein was organ-
ized. 35 During that period, however, proximity to cheap lands
offered a solution of the economic problem to many a hard
pressed worker; this remedy still existed to a limited degree
but the worker in a more complex society began to sense his
own strength with a growing class consciousness a conscious-
ness that gave birth to the labor movement in Illinois.
In December, 1863, a mass meeting of Chicago working-
men representing nearly every field sent resolutions to the
striking laborers of New York. Within a few months, in
view of increased living expenses, Chicago workers were organ-
izing into some twenty trade-unions with a " general trades
union" to harmonize their relations. 36 With the same process
going on in Springfield and the other cities of the state, strikes
began to make their appearance in Illinois; March i, 1864, was
significant for the general railroad strike on roads entering
Chicago in which the locomotive engineers sought, after having
secured a $3.50 wage, to define their week's work in terms of
a run of a specified mileage as against six ten-hour work days.
The railroads stood their ground, backed by the newspapers,
and the engineers one after another returned to their duty.
In the same year short strikes took place among the coopers,
carpenters, waiters, bakers, and other labor groups. The
34 For cooperative stores and societies see Prairie Farmer, June 20, 1863,
Chicago Tribune, November 21, 1863; Chicago Evening Journal, November 23,
1865; Chicago Post, January 3, 1866.
35 The miners about Belleville were organized in 1860 under their leader,
John Hinchcliffe, with the German element sufficiently numerous to^warrant a
separate issue of the Belleville Miner and Workman's Advocate in German
shortly after its institution. Belleville Democrat, February 2, 16, 1861 ; January
16, 1864.
39 Chicago Times, December 29, 1863, April 25, May 6, 1864; Chicago Morn-
ing Post, December 30, 1863; Chicago Tribune, April 27, August 21, 23, 1864.
370 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
strike had taken its place as the favorite weapon by which
the workers sought to secure their " rights."
With the growing class consciousness of the workers they
began to recognize the influence they exercised in political life
and soon launched a movement whereby labor definitely en-
tered politics. In 1864 when many workers were alienated
from Lincoln by his war policies, a Chicago mass meeting of
workingmen proposed an independent "labor party." The
republicans tried to head it off by references to their rail-splitter
and tailor candidates while the democrats posed as the pro-
tectors of the laboring poor from the tyranny of capital and
of the national administration. Cyrus H. McCormick, demo-
cratic candidate for congress, made a direct appeal to the
workers through the columns of the W or king man' s Advocated
With such bids from the professional politician old party con-
nections proved in every sense too strong for a new alignment.
Indeed, politicians displayed unlimited zeal in trying to placate
labor. In 1866, when the workers launched a widespread
movement for an eight-hour law and organized an eight-hour
league to support only eight-hour men, all candidates took up
the idea. A legislature was elected which enacted the eight-
hour law of 1867 providing that, in the absence of any contract,
eight hours except in farm labor should be a legal day's work.
It was not to be expected that the employers would acqui-
esce without a fight in this new-found power of the working-
men. Indeed, they had not been sitting idly by; suddenly they
showed their hand. Upon agreement they notified their em-
ployees that such as were unwilling to work ten hours might
consider themselves discharged. The workers, in angry reply,
organized themselves through the Illinois Labor Convention
to secure the advantages of the eight-hour system. The law
was to go into effect May I ; for that day they planned a grand
demonstration in Chicago followed by a general strike. The
newspapers, sensing a shift in public opinion in response to the
uncompromising attitude of the employers, immediately at-
tacked the program of the workers and aroused public opinion
against them ; nevertheless, on May Day the strikes broke out
all over the state and soon work was generally suspended.
37 Chicago Times, August 22, 1864; Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1864.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 371
Chicago was the seat of special disturbances which at times
went as far as serious rioting between thje strikers and those
who remained at work. Governor Oglesby, who had pre-
viously indicated his desire to see the state law enforced, was
silent during the struggle; Mayor John B. Rice of Chicago,
however, took advantage of the growing reaction against the
law to issue on May 3 a proclamation calling attention to a
statute which forbade preventing any person from working at
any lawful business and combining to deprive the owner of
property of its lawful use and management. 38 Under this policy
the loosely organized workers were gradually compelled to
resume employment; in only a few cases were they permitted
to labor eight hours for eight hours pay. By the first week in
June the struggle had pretty well come to an end and the law
became a dead letter.
The eight-hour law and its failure stimulated experiments
with the principle of cooperative labor. In some instances
this meant the association of workers on a purely cooperative
basis; in other cases old established firms, like Dillman and
Company of Joliet, or newly organized joint stock companies,
like the Northwestern Manufacturing Company of Chicago,
introduced the new system into their plants. 39
Deserted by the old party politicians, the more independent
minded labor leaders began to consider an independent political
activity to wield the influence to which their numbers entitled
them. For them the blandishments of the old parties had
come to an end; in the fall of 1867 preparations were made
in various parts of the state for the launching of a labor party
as a nation wide movement. 40 In the spring of 1868 plans
were pushed aggressively. The republican leaders tried to
check them by directing a labor movement within their party;
a republican farmers' and laboring men's state convention at
Decatur in April recommended Harrison Noble as the workers*
candidate for the republican nomination as governor. When
38 Chicago Evening Post, May 3, 1867; Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1867.
39 Ibid., April 29, May 7, 14, 27, 1867; Joliet Signal, June u, 15, 1867;
Illinois State Journal, September 3, 1867.
40 Ottawa and Alton were centers of activity and in the latter a mayor was
elected on the workingmen's ticket. Ottawa Free Trader, August 3, September
7, 21, 1867; Ottawa Weekly Republican, September 19, 26, October 10, 1867;
Illinois State Journal, September 14, 1867.
372 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
this recommendation was ignored the movement became even
more independent. Independent workingmen's candidates for
congress were nominated, including Alexander Campbell of
La Salle; possibilities of a presidential ticket were even dis-
cussed. The trade-unions of Chicago placed in nomination
full legislative, county, and city tickets. 41 All these move-
ments were abortive but they did not entirely discourage
further efforts along these lines in succeeding years.
Some gains were made by the workers through political
pressure. In 1869 an aggressive mechanics lien law was se-
cured by the managers of the labor forces at Chicago which
gave the workers a lien upon all buildings upon which they
labored and also upon the lots upon which the buildings were
erected. A bill requiring safety devices for the protection of
coal miners in their hazardous occupation passed the lower
house at Springfield in 1869 but, failing to become law, the
proposition was passed on to the consideration of the constitu-
tional convention of iSyo. 42 Thus in a growing class conscious-
ness and in an increasing sense of their power the labor forces
of Illinois gave further testimony to the industrial revolution.
41 Illinois State Journal, August 19, 1868; Chicago Tribune, April 8, 15,
September 14, 1868; Ottawa Free Trader, August 15, 1868; Ottawa Weekly
Republican, August 20, 1868.
42 Chicago Tribune, January 27, February 8, April 12, 1869; Illinois State
Register, January 26, 1870; Du Quoin Tribune, March 30, 1870; Laws of 1869,
p. 255-259.
XVII. AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR
ILLINOIS had become by 1 860 the center of the agricultural
life of the nation. The Civil War brought with it an
unique opportunity to place her resources at the disposal of the
union cause and to develop a prosperity which made possible
an important contribution to the sinews of war. As a result
the agricultural life of the state was quickened; and, in
spite of various handicaps, Illinois not only continued but
strengthened her agricultural leadership of the northwestern
states.
Much of this development was merely greater expansion
along the well-established lines of wheat and corn production.
Illinois profited from the new demand for foodstuffs to feed
the union armies and, as a result of poor European harvests in
1860, 1 86 1, and 1862, from the increased purchases by for-
eign countries. Despite the steady drain on farm labor with
an army of over a quarter of a million men summoned to the
colors, the acreage was increased and good crops were har-
vested. Corn production, with a harvest of 129,921,395
bushels in 1869, rose twenty per cent over the figures for
the bumper crop of 1859, an< ^ Champaign, McLean, and
La Salle counties took their place as the heart of the corn belt.
They were more fortunate in their accessibility to markets
than the counties along the Mississippi river, which had pre-
viously sent their corn crop to the slave states; these regions
now converted their unprecedented corn harvests into the more
marketable form of fat hogs, although at times local market
prices dropped so low that large quantities were burned as
fuel. 1 After the war, an important corn market was greatly
weakened by the excise of two dollars per gallon on whisky,
an article worth only thirty or forty cents; this was a factor
sufficiently serious to cause considerable discontent among the
1 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 48 : 400 ; Galena Gazette clipped in The
(Columbus, Ohio) Crisis, January 10, 1866.
373
374 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
farmers. By strenuous activity in the wheat fields Illinois con-
tinued with an output of 30,128,405 bushels in 1869 to main-
tain her position as the first wheat raising as well as corn grow-
ing state. The price of wheat rose steadily and averaged over
a dollar a bushel for the Civil War period. The high water
mark was reached in 1867 when wheat sold for $3.50 and
flour at $18.00 per barrel in the city of Springfield. 2
A somewhat similar development took place in the produc-
tion of the minor cereals. The output of oats leaped forward
with an increase of over 180 per cent with the result that
Illinois exchanged fourth place for ranking position in oats
production.
The Civil War period brought to maturity the promise
of the fifties for a wonderful horticultural development in
southern Illinois. A region of less than one hundred miles
along the Illinois Central railroad, centering in the district be-
tween Jonesboro and Carbondale, developed into an impor-
tant fruit belt, containing over one hundred thousand bearing
fruit trees in 1865 and three times that number in 1866; in
that same year 716,375 apple, pear, and peach trees were set
out. Willard C. Flagg of Madison county, secretary of the
Illinois State Horticultural Society, had a 1,100 acre farm with
80 acres in orchard. A fruit farm near Cobden in Union
county owned by J. L. and S. S. Sawyer, included 5,000 grape
vines, 20,000 peach, and 7,000 apple trees, 7 acres of straw-
berries, 3,000 gooseberry plants, besides small fruits and veg-
etables. 3 In the summer of 1862 the Illinois Central was
induced to inaugurate a special fruit express to avoid what
was termed the rapacity of the regular express companies in
bringing the fruit to the Chicago market. In the succeeding
years at the demand of the Southern Illinois Fruit Growers'
Association, a fruit train to St. Louis as well as Chicago became
a regular arrangement; in the closing days of May a train of
from ten to fifty cars transported the strawberry crop; in late
July the peach trade began, followed shortly by pear and apple
2 Illinois State Journal, April 26, 1867.
3 Illinois State Register, August 10, 1866; Flagg's orchard included 4,500
apple trees, 150 pears, 1,200 peaches, 60 plums, and many others. Belleville
Advocate, July 28, 1865; Illinois State Agricultural Society, Transactions,
6:196-200.
AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR 375
shipments. In August, 1867, the Illinois Central cleared
$40,000 on peach shipments alone; in that season it carried
8,692,200 pounds of fruit from twenty stations in southern
Illinois. 4
Egypt far surpassed northern Illinois both in the quality
and quantity of its fruit harvests. The region about Quincy,
however, was a good apple country in 1867 shipping nearly
fifty thousand bushels. The most successful grape culture of
the state was carried on about Nauvoo, Peoria, and Bloom-
ington; Dr. H. Schroder, the well-known horticulturalist of
Bloomington, planted the first grape vines there in 1858 and
soon had extensive vineyards; his exhibits were usually prize
winners at the state fair. 5 By 1869 Illinois had nine local hor-
ticultural societies and four county associations, in addition to
the societies based on larger territorial units.
The modern dairy industry of northern Illinois had its
beginning in the Civil War era. Even during the fifties Chi-
cago had come more and more to draw upon outlying towns
for its supply of milk; in 1859 Elgin, with about twenty export
dairymen, shipped 227,047 gallons of milk to Chicago. Eight
years later though, with competition from Kane and neighbor-
ing counties, the shipment from Elgin had increased only to
296,197 gallons, yet its value had risen from nine to sixteen
cents a gallon. 6
Meantime, the dairy industry had become far more com-
plex. A heavy butter trade developed : the little town of Wil-
mington in 1866 in addition to freight shipments sent out by
express 16,912 pounds of butter in a single week. Butter sold
at twenty-five to thirty-five cents a pound and was often in
such demand as to leave unsupplied the local trade. In 1865
the Gail Borden and Company condensed milk factory was
established at Elgin; at the end of the decade it was condensing
daily from twelve to eighteen hundred gallons, or three to four
thousand cans. In 1864 the first cheese factory in the west was
established at Bloomingdale, Illinois; and within a few years
4 Illinois State Register, September 18, November 14, 1867; Cairo Democrat,
December 19, 1867.
5 Prairie Farmer, January 30, May 14, October i, 1864, January 12, 1867.
8 Chicago Press and Tribune, February 8, 1859; Illinois State Journal,
January 30, 1867.
376 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
there were such establishments in ten northern Illinois counties.
McHenry county in particular promptly became a great
cheesemaking center; in 1866 it contained no cheese factories;
in 1867 eight factories in operation for a season of four to six
months consumed 5,500,000 pounds of milk and produced 600,-
ooo pounds of cheese. Two years later eleven factories made
about 1,600,000 pounds. In 1870 nine counties in northeastern
Illinois produced nearly sixteen million pounds of cheese with
a capital investment of $1,667,500; cheese was then worth
twelve and one-half cents a pound. 7
What was probably the first dairyman's convention west
of Ohio met at Rockford in March, 1867, for an interchange
of ideas and comparison of experiences; this resulted in the
organization of the Illinois and Wisconsin Dairymen's Asso-
ciation. Three months later a similar meeting at Elgin
arranged for the organization of the Fox River Dairy Club. 8
By doubling the value of all livestock Illinois rose in a
decade from third to first rank as a stock raising state. The
biggest gains were in the northern division of the state. In beef
cattle production the increase for the state was only 8.7 per
cent, since a 26.6 per cent loss in the southern division neu-
tralized the heavy 38 per cent gain registered in the central
counties. Though second to Texas in cattle production, Illinois
beef began to take a leading place in the New York market;
nearly one-half of the 165,000,000 pounds received in New
York in 1862 was raised in Illinois. 9 This same record was
maintained in the succeeding years with Illinois cattle often
outnumbering those from all other states. Champaign county
furnished large quotas; but Morgan county, with three of the
largest cattle dealers in the country, held the palm. Jacob
Strawn, until his death in 1865, had continued to be one of the
leading Illinois stockgrowers, while John T. Alexander, the
Jacksonville cattle king, sometimes sold single lots of 3,000
7 Illinois State Register, December 5, 1865; Ottawa Weekly Republican,
January 30, 1868, June 17, November 4, 1869, August n, 1870; Aurora Beacon,
January 30, 1868, October 9, 1869; Ottawa Free Trader, May 27, 1865; Joliet
Signal, June 5, 1866; Prairie Farmer, February 22, 1868.
8 Rockford Gazette, February 7, 1867; Ottawa Weekly Republican, Febru-
ary 6, 1868; Prairie Farmer, March 2, 23, August 10, 1867, February i, 1868.
9 Rockford Register, February 14, 1863.
AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR 377
head of cattle; he, together with William M. Cassell and
George D. Alexander, in twelve months shipped over 65,000
head of cattle which at six dollars a hundredweight were valued
at $5,ooo,ooo. 10
The driving of cattle from Texas to Illinois for prepara-
tion for market revived with the close of the Civil War. The
imported cattle often arrived in, a sickly and exhausted con-
dition, with their longhorned, shark-like carcasses resembling
walking corn cribs. John T. Alexander after several trials
finally found the business of fattening them for market de-
cidedly unprofitable. Nevertheless, the shipping of longhorns
to take advantage of the grazing and feeding facilities of Illi-
nois continued by the thousands. One company in 1867 con-
tracted for the shipment #f over 70,000 Texas cattle. In 1868
the firm of Gregory and Hastings of Chicago grazed a herd
of nearly 35,000 at Tolono. In that year sixty or seventy
thousand came into the state by way of Cairo alone. 11
These importations often brought with them a dread cattle
murrain, the " Spanish fever," a disease that not only took a
heavy toll from the longhorns but also infected fine herds of
native cattle. In 1866 it caused so much complaint that in
February of the following year a law was enacted "to prevent
the importation of Texas or Cherokee cattle." Since, how-
ever, the law was ignored, with the result that in 1868 the
disease again raged in Iroquois, Vermilion, Ford, and Cham-
paign counties, vigilance committees were appointed at differ-
ent stations to prevent the unloading of further importations.
At the same time meetings were held and other movements
initiated in favor of an effective state law against the impor-
tation of Texas cattle; a cattle convention at Springfield on
the first of December advised a law the passage of which
Governor Oglesby recommended in his message to the legis-
lature. The result was legislative restriction on the importation
of Texas cattle except between the first of November and the
first of March. 12
10 Illinois State Journal, May 4, 1864; Chicago Tribune, August 2, 20, 1869.
11 Cairo Democrat, September 17, 1867, July 14, 27, 1868; Champaign County
Union and Gazette, August 5, 1868; Illinois State Journal, February 23, 1870;
Illinois State Register, July i, 1868, March 3, 1869.
12 Ibid., November 19, 1866, July 30, August 17, September 2, December
378 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
The war greatly stimulated the demand for pork, and
prices continued steady between $5 and $6.50 per hundred-
weight. Illinois' output so increased as to place it in second
place. At times the hog cholera prevailed in various parts
of the state but never became epidemic. In 1867 an Illinois
swine breeders' association came into existence. 13
With the new demand for uniforms and with the wide-
spread substitution of wool for the now unavailable southern
cotton, the war offered a remarkable stimulus to the produc-
tion of wool. In the five years ending in 1865 the number
of sheep in the state more than doubled, 14 with Sangamon
county as the center of the wool raising district. Although
in 1 86 1 wool was worth only twenty-five cents a pound, within
a few years its value increased to eighty cents. As the demand
from the government fell off with the close of the war and the
price dropped to forty cents, sheep shearing exhibitions, fairs,
or festivals were held to increase interest in the industry. In
1863 at the state fair at Decatur the Wool Growers' Associa-
tion of the State of Illinois had been organized, and this body
now undertook to secure a new stimulus to their industry by
agitation in favor of a protective tariff against "inferior im-
ported wool;" in 1866 and 1867 resolutions strongly urging
protection were adopted. 15 Illinoisians also took a prominent
part in the Wool Tariff Convention at Cleveland in 1866. In
spite of the concessions they were able to secure, the price
continued to drop; and the last five years of the decade brought
a considerable decline in sheep raising.
The war cut off the normal supply of southern staples, and
Illinois was one of the few states able to step in and take
advantage of the situation. This was particularly true of cot-
I, 3, 1868; Illinois State Journal, February 23, 1867; Prairie Farmer, March
9, 1867; Champaign County Union and Gazette, August 5, 1868; Canton Weekly
Register, September 4, 1868; Chicago Tribune, January 5, 1869; / Laws of 1867,
p. 169; Laws of 1869, p. 237.
13 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 54:376-384; Ottawa Free Trader, Decem-
ber 18, 1869.
14 See the contradictory figures in Cairo Democrat, February 16, 1864; Ot-
tawa Weekly Republican, July 29, 1865; Canton Weekly Register, February 5,
1866; Aurora Beacon, May 31, 1866; Jacksonville Journal, February 7, 1867.
15 Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1863, January 9, 1867; Chicago Times,
October 7, 1863; Chicago Post, February 22, 1866; Aurora Beacon, January 17,
1867; Prairie Farmer, January 19, 1867.
AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR 379
ton after the Mississippi river was closed. Previous to the war
a considerable amount of cotton was raised in the southern
counties but mainly by farmers' wives to add to their "pin
money." 16 In the fall of 1861, after reports of successful
experiments by certain individuals during the previous summer,
preparations were made for extensive cotton growing in the
following season. Although critics began to deplore the wide-
spread " cotton mania," they were swamped by the " pro-cot-
tonists." Immediately a seed problem arose; the federal
government, however, undertook to secure seed and to dis-
tribute it in Illinois through John P. Reynolds, the correspond-
ing secretary of the State Agricultural Society. As a result a
crop estimated at twenty thousand bales was raised, when
cotton was selling in the east at sixty cents a pound. 17 In the
spring of 1863 the price had risen to eighty-seven and one-half
cents, and the farmers of southern Illinois responded by secur-
ing cotton seed by the carload. Cotton culture on a large scale
followed, and the 1864 crop was marketed when the eastern
price was $1.50 per pound.
Many southern exiles and some Negro freedmen were
drawn upon to aid in this new development. One of the for-
mer, Archie J. Elyutt, established the Southerner and Cotton
Planter at Cairo in 1865 to attract southern emigrants and
others to the possibility of cotton culture in southern Illinois. 18
The next harvest showed an unprecedented yield; Jonesboro
and Carbondale with cotton in the air and on the streets seemed
like southern cities. In season ten gins ran continuously in
Carbondale, which shipped 4,000 bales. A region of southern
Illinois which had produced only 1,416 pounds in 1862 three
years later harvested over one and a half million pounds, mar-
keted at the western price of forty-five cents a pound. 19 A
high production cost, however, was involved in the raising of
19 Rockford Republican, February 21, 1861.
17 Belleville Advocate, February 14, March 21, November 21, 1862; Illinois
State Register, February n, 1862; Illinois State Journal, March 29, May 12,
1862; Lewis Ellsworth to Trumbull, February 19, 1862, Caleb Smith to Trum-
bull, February 20, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts; Champaign County Patriot,
November 6, 1862.
18 Cairo Weekly Democrat, March 23, 1865.
19 Chicago Tribune, November 14, December 26, 1865; Cairo Times clipped
in Chicago Post, March 14, 1866; Illinois State Agricultural Society, Transac-
tions, 6: 191-194.
380 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
these crops; when, therefore, with the return of peace and
competition with southern cotton a heavy 1866 harvest had
to be marketed at one-half the 1865 price, the enthusiasm for
cotton culture was promptly demolished; and by 1869 the
production was only one-tenth that of 1865.
The scarcity of cotton during the early years of the war
also stimulated the cultivation of flax. This was the oppor-
tunity of the northern district, and in 1863 it was seized upon
with such keenness that a flax belt appeared centering in
De Kalb county. Developments were less spectacular than in
the case of cotton ; but during the decade Illinois multiplied its
output nearly fifty times, reaching a crop of 2,204,606 pounds
in 1 869. Factories for cleaning the flax fiber and for the manu-
facture of linen goods were established at Batavia, Ottawa,
Sycamore, Mendota, and other points. 20
Illinois also made wonderful progress in the field of raising
saccharose crops to take the place of Louisiana cane sugar.
The output of maple sugar had begun to fall off in the forties;
but Civil War conditions stimulated a slight increase, while
sorghum culture made great gains. Secession came just at the
height of the enthusiasm over Chinese sugar cane, and during
the first two years of the decade the output was almost doubled;
such heavy sowings were made in southern Illinois that for a
considerable time it was difficult to secure seed. Reduced prices
after the war resulted in merely nominal increases so that the
census of 1870 showed an output of only 1,900,000 gallons of
sirup; the 1869 harvest had doubtless fallen off as a result of
advice to force up prices by curtailed planting. Repeated
efforts to produce a satisfactory granulated sugar from the
Chinese sugar cane ended in failure; even such large scale
ventures as the Northwestern Chinese Sugar Manufacturing
Company which was incorporated in 1 863 collapsed promptly. 21
Interest in the possibility of beet sugar production was
20 Ottawa Weekly Republican, February 21, 1863, December 16, 1869;
Illinois State Journal, February 23, March 7, April 27, 1863; Cairo Democrat,
October 8, 1863; Aurora Beacon, March 17, July 21, 1864.
21 Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 1862, p. 140-147; Jacksonville
Journal, November 13, 1862; Chicago Tribune, December 8, 1862; Champaign
County Union and Gazette, April i, 1868; Ottawa Free Trader, March 20,
1869; Cairo Gazette, April 2, 1863; D. C. Martin to Trumbull, February i,
1862, Trumbull manuscripts.
AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR 381
aroused by the dissemination of information as to conditions
in France and Germany ; soon ventures were launched into this
field. In 1862 an unsuccessful experiment was made by H.
Belcher, a Chicago refiner; three years later nothing significant
had been accomplished, though many people, including John P.
Reynolds, the secretary of the State Agricultural Society, were
convinced that the manufacture of sugar from sugar beets
could be made to pay. Then a group of Chicagoans consti-
tuting the Illinois Beet Sugar Company undertook to investi-
gate conditions in Germany and France through one of their
number, C. E. Olmstead, whom Governor Oglesby appointed
a special honorary agent for the state; but this brought no
immediate results. 22 At the same time a beet sugar manufac-
tory was being built at Chatsworth, in Livingston county, for
the Germania Beet Sugar Company of which Theodore Gen-
nert was superintendent. Gennert went to Germany where he
secured the necessary machinery and three hundred mechanics
and laborers. In 1867 this company manufactured and mar-
keted one hundred thousand pounds of sugar and the following
season was shipping a carload a week. This was the first
successful beet sugar venture in Illinois. 23
One of the most significant aspects of Illinois' marvelous
agricultural contributions during the years of the war was the
withdrawal of an army of a quarter million workers, a majority
of whom went from the farms of the state ; from certain agri-
cultural districts over nine-tenths of the young and able-bodied
men liable to the draft promptly went into service. 24 The
shortage of farm laborers was soon reflected in increased
wages and in appeals for help. Wages rose to $1.25, to $2.00,
and were then forced still higher by the depreciation of paper
money; in some instances farmers turned their cattle into their
grain fields rather than pay the rates required to harvest. The
revival of foreign immigration relieved the problem of upstate
22 Illinois State Journal, June 21, 1865; Illinois State Register, September
25, 1865; J. D. Ward to Trumbull, September 19, 1865, Trumbull manuscripts.
23 Illinois State Register, July 6, October 4, November 17, 1865; Chicago
Evening Journal, December 18, 1865, March 8, 1866; Prairie Farmer, April 27,
1867; Ottawa Free Trader, January 4, 1868; Champaign County Union and
Gazette, November 24, 1869.
24 Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil
382 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
farmers, while southern Illinois sent the Negro " contrabands "
into the harvest fields. At an early day, too, women and chil-
dren took their places as farm hands, and a grown man at
work in the fields came to be pronounced " a rare sight." 25
Invisible labor units were added by the installation of agri-
cultural machinery, which saved many of the western crops; 26
even conservative farmers were forced to replace and supple-
ment man power by machines. Oxen were found to be too
slow for the hauling of expensive farm implements; and, in
spite of the scarcity and high price of horses, the former were
steadily discarded. The reduction of the number of oxen in
the state in 1870 to about one-fifth of the 1860 figure offers
peculiar testimony to the extensive introduction of farm
machinery in the Civil War decade.
Illinois had prepared in the previous decade for this devel-
opment in the use of farm machinery. In 1 8 6 1 Illinoisians took
out eighty patents, or over one-seventh of the patents for
such machines granted by the government; seventeen for cul-
tivators, fifteen for harvester machines, eleven for ploughs,
and ten for corn planters. 27 In the decade the value of farm
implements doubled, giving the state third instead of fifth rank
among the states of the union. The prairie regions particu-
larly came to be exploited by farm machinery: the value of
farm machinery in Champaign county, for instance, increased
from $25,000 in 1850 to more than $600,000 in 1870.
In 1860 the size of the average Illinois farm was 158 acres;
in 1870 it had dropped to 127 acres, although there was still
a gain in the amount of improved land. Against this general
tendency on the part of farm units to decrease in size, many
large farms held their own. Farms of several thousand acres
were scattered over the state. M. L. Sullivant, who lived on
an inclosed estate of twenty-three thousand acres called
" Broadlands," eight miles south of Homer in Champaign
county, was reputed to own " the largest farm in the United
25 Carthage Republican, June 9, 1864.
26 Scientific American, 9:9.
27 U. S. Patent Office, Report, 1861, p. 637-648. In 1867 the first patent for a
disc plow was granted to M. A. and J. M. Cravath of Bloomington. Hales, His-
tory of Agriculture, July i, 1915, p. 47. Gang-plows had already begun to come
into use as an important labor saving device. Prairie Farmer, June 4, 1864.
AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR 383
States, and probably in the world." He had an aggregate of
80,000 acres of land; one piece in Piatt county was a tract of
45,000 acres. At the same time John T. Alexander, a mil-
lionaire farmer of Morgan county, was said to own a tract of
80,000 acres without an acre of waste or poor land; 32,000
head of cattle fed in his pastures and 16,000 acres were put in
corn for the 15,000 head of hogs that he was raising. In 1866
Alexander purchased " Broadlands " and established himself
in Champaign county. 28
In the Civil War era a new sense of professional pride
in agricultural pursuits evidenced itself in a tendency toward
more extensive organization. Farmers' clubs began to appear
in all parts of the state for weekly neighborhood meetings
and informal discussions, especially during the winter months.
The county and state agricultural societies continued along
established lines, although war conditions interfered consider-
ably with their fairs and caused the omission of the 1862 state
fair. The fairs and horse shows were assuming a more prac-
tical bearing; and important steps were taken toward the
introduction of new breeds and the improvement of livestock
in general. Moreover, the state society found new opportu-
nities for practical service, in directing the adjustments in farm
economy to war conditions and in conducting the discussion of
problems connected with the establishment of an industrial
university under the Morrill land grant act. In 1867 a very
successful Illinois exhibit was made at the Paris exposition
under the direction of John P. Reynolds, who was selected by
the State Agricultural Society and commissioned by the gov-
ernor to represent the state ; in the awards the Illinois collection
received several medals. 29
The return of peace in 1865 terminated the advantage that
the farmer had derived from war conditions. As war time
markets were closed and prices on agricultural products
dropped, although manufactured goods held their own, a rest-
28 Homer Journal clipped in Central Illinois Gazette, June 22, 1866; ibid.,
February 2, 1866; Canton Weekly Register, May 7, 1866; Homer Journal clipped
in Illinois^ State Register, November 8, 1866.
29 Illinois State Agricultural Society, Transactions, 7:616-708; Ottawa
Weekly Republican, July 18, 1867; Chicago Tribune, July 29, August i, 1867;
Illinois State Journal, February 3, 1869.
384 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
lessness developed among the producing classes that threatened
to break out into a serious farmers' revolt. The farmer had
certain grievances growing directly out of the marketing of
his products. First of all he confronted the difficulty of secur-
ing a fair price for his crops; then, with a growing dependence
upon the railroads, he wrestled with the transportation prob-
lem. High rail rates and elevator charges conspired to rob
him of what he regarded as a fair return upon his labor. The
news of railroad consolidations and rumors of combinations
between the railroad interests and the warehouses, followed
by advanced rates of storage and transportation, acquired a
new significance when it was found by that heavy stock sub-
scriptions the railroads were controlling the grain elevators. 30
Something of a crisis came in the winter of 18651866
when in parts of Illinois the price of corn fell to 1 ten cents a
bushel and was cheaper than wood for fuel purposes. At the
same time railroad rates were so exorbitant as to cause cattle
raisers to consider it more economical to drive their cattle to the
Chicago market. Complaint became widespread among the pro-
ducing classes; the cry of "monopoly" arose, "the people hav-
ing become alarmed at the designs and usurpations of the East-
ern oligarchs, who now own and control Congress" 31 the
issue was regarded by many as " eastern capital v. western
labor." Then began a struggle between the agriculturist's
and the "monopolists" preliminary to the granger movement
of the seventies. In 1862 an Industrial League had been
formed by the farmers of La Salle county as the preliminary
to this farmers' movement. 32 On October 22, 1865, a con-
vention of over two thousand farmers of the sixth congressional
district met at Grundy in the interest of cheap transportation;
among other things it requested the executive board of the State
Agricultural Society to call together a state farmers' mass
convention at Bloomington on December 15. This was done;
when the convention assembled it recommended an elaborate
80 Prairie Farmer, April 2, May 7, August 13, 1864.
31 Galena Gazette and Monmouth Review clipped in The (Columbus, Ohio)
Crisis, January 10, 17, 1866; Whiteside Sentinel clipped in Chicago Evening
Journal, November 20, 1865.
32 Illinois State Journal, December 18, 1862; Ottawa Weekly Republican,
January 24, 1863.
AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR 385
scheme of internal waterways and adopted a resolution "That
it is expedient at this time to form a League of Illinois, with
branch associations throughout the State, whose object it shall
be, by legislative action, or, if necessary by constitutional pro-
vision, to restrict railroad, express, and warehouse charges
within reasonable limits." 33 A similar mass convention was
held at Bloomington June 29, 1866.
At the same time sentiment was developing against the
so-called "live stock 'ring'" of Chicago. In the legislature
of 1865 the Union Stock Yard and Transit Company had been
incorporated with authority to manage a cattle yard, a series
of branch railroads, a bank, and a hotel; many leading stock
men had opposed it as a monopoly without knowing that $925,-
ooo out of the capital of $1,000,000 was subscribed to by nine
of the principal western railroads. In 1866 a group of com-
mission men, calling themselves "The Board of Live Stock
Commission Men," undertook to convert this largest and most
important livestock market in the world into a secret exchange
by suppressing the reports of sales of cattle in the daily news-
papers. Though blocked by the local press, they were able at
times to buy hogs at five or six cents live weight and sell pork,
ham, and lard at more than double that price. In 1868 after
wheat had been " cornered " three times, corn and barley twice,
and rye and oats once, a corner on pork forced up the price
of pork products to prices that aroused the wrath of the
deluded farmer. 34
Here was a hydra headed monster that must be slain. The
people of the northwest were gradually awakened to the
importance of legislative action to prevent these "moneyed
monopolies from swallowing up the entire earnings of the
producing classes, and reducing the country to poverty, that
they may declare large dividends." 35 When new elevator
companies found themselves unable to compete with estab-
33 Aurora Beacon, November 20, 1865; Chicago Evening Journal, November
23, 27, 1865; Illinois State Register, November 29, December 23, 1865; Jackson-
ville Journal, June i, 1866.
34 Illinois State Register, January 29, 1865; Chicago Post, December 27,
1865; National Live Stock Journal, September, 1870, p. 29; Chicago Tribune,
October 31, November 5, 1866; December 19, 1868; Canton Weekly Register,
November 26, 1866; Illinois Democrat, September n, 1868.
35 Paxton Record, December 16, 1865.
386 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
lished concerns on account of railroad discrimination, the ware-
house act of 1867 was passed in spite of the opposition of the
warehouse men backed by the railroad lobbyists. This law
established a set of regulations for warehouses, opened them
to public inspection, fixed a penalty for " gambling contracts,"
and required the railroads to deliver grain to the warehouses to
which it was consigned. 36 Members of the Chicago Board of
Trade were arrested shortly for violating the clause prohibit-
ing "gambling contracts;" their prosecution, however, was
held up and the provision languished in innocuous desuetude
until the next legislature restored trading in " futures." Re-
peated efforts at railway legislation resulted in the railroad
law of 1869. Although no results followed the farmers' attack
upon " the slaughter-house and cattle yard monopoly," repeated
efforts at railway legislation bore fruit in the railroad law of
1869.
Thus did the farmers without adequate organization or
direction show their strength in the politics of the state. But
already the missionaries of a new order were preparing the
soil for a more aggressive program of self-defense ; in another
decade under the more efficient organization of the Patrons
of Husbandry Illinois agriculturalists were to take their part
in a great revolt by the farmers of the northwest. 37
86 I Laws of 1867, p. 177-182; Chicago Tribune, August 17, 1867, February
13, 1868; Ottawa Weekly Republican, August 22, 1867.
3T Prairie Farmer, November 13, 1869, March 26, April 30, 1870; Kelley,
Patrons of Husbandry, 245 ff.
XVIII. RECONSTRUCTION AND THE MILITARY
POLITICIAN
THE brilliant military exploits of the autumn of 1864 were
continued into the winter months. First General Sher-
man presented Savannah as a Christmas gift to the union and
then, with scarcely enough opposition to relieve the tedium of
the march, moved his unconquerable forces northward through
the heart of Dixie; meanwhile Grant hammered away at the
defenses of Richmond. This combination against the confed-
eracy was enough to forecast its prompt suppression.
In January, 1865, General Richard J. Oglesby, the distin-
guished veteran of Donelson and Corinth, was called to the
gubernatorial chair from the field of battle. His election and
inauguration, therefore, forecast the transition that the na-
tion was soon to experience when camp and battlefield were
giving up their hosts and yielding to the constructive tasks of
civil life. Governor Yates made his farewell in a message
surveying the history of his administration and the war record
of Illinois at such length as to break all records for state execu-
tive documents; Oglesby in his inaugural devoted himself
largely to the national outlook to problems which were in
the large to assume greater importance than state politics dur-
ing his administration. Like his predecessor he recommended
the repeal of all laws bearing unequally upon Negroes and
declared them entitled to the rights and privileges of the whites.
The time was indeed ripe for reaping the harvest that republic-
anism had for a decade been preparing.
While awaiting the complete triumph of the federal arms
the republicans undertook to make a final disposition of the
slavery question by adopting a constitutional provision for
abolition. Governor Yates had formally petitioned congress
to take this step in January, 1864. An attempt was made
387
388 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
early in the following June, but the proposition failed in the
house of representatives where the Illinois democratic delega-
tion voted solidly for its defeat. 1 The republicans, however,
now interpreted their sweeping victory of 1864 as a mandate
for abolition and insisted that five of the Illinois democratic
congressmen had been instructed by the votes of their constit-
uents to support the proposed amendment. The new legisla-
ture undertook to make these instructions formal in a set of
joint resolutions, but before this action could be completed
news reached Springfield of the passage of the amendment. 2
The Illinois congressional delegation, however, had again di-
vided along party lines and voted against the amendment.
On February I, 1865, immediately upon the arrival of the
news of congressional action, the Illinois legislature adopted
a resolution of ratification, thereby winning the honor of being
the first state to ratify the thirteenth amendment. 3
As a very proper corollary to this signal step toward free-
dom for the Negro the Illinois legislature acted to repeal the
"black laws" by which a free state had placed serious limita-
tions upon the freedom of the Negroes within its limits. The
republican assembly of 1861, to the disappointment of all rad-
ical antislavery leaders, had failed to eliminate these laws on
account of the sectional crisis; then, having been driven from
control by the democrats, the republicans had found their hands
tied until the victory of 1864. Now, however, on February 7,
1865, the " infamous" legislation which the champions of free-
dom had so bitterly attacked but which had survived under
democratic rule was wiped from the statute books. Next, con-
firming the prophecies of democratic critics, the " Negro equal-
ity" party began a discussion of the logic of Negro suffrage;
1 The Illinois vote was five (all union men) for the measure and eight
(all democrats) against it, with Anthony L. Knapp not voting; Rockford Regis-
ter, July 2, 9, 1864; Congressional Globe, 38 congress, i session, 145, 522, 694,
2995; Illinois State Register, February 4, 1864.
2 Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1864, January 24, 26, February 3, 1865;
Illinois State Journal, February i, 2, 1865; Rockford Democrat, February 2,
1865; House Journal, 38 congress, 2 session, 264-265. The most surprising vote
against the amendment was that of John T. Stuart of the Springfield district,
President Lincoln's former instructor and partner in law; Stuart like Lincoln
had previously been a whig of the Henry Clay school, but while he now indig-
nantly rejected any imputation of proslavery views, he could not reconcile
himself to the political consequences of emancipation.
3 Laws of 1865, p. 135.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 389
inasmuch as this suggested a new source of continued power,
republicans promptly organized a campaign to attain that goal.
To the end of reenforcing republican ascendancy in state poli-
tics the legislature enacted a voters' registration law and a
soldiers' voting law, and considered a new congressional appor-
tionment measure; although each had its merits in a nonparti-
san sense, they all involved some peculiar party advantage,
represented most clearly in the gerrymandering provision of
the apportionment bill which sliced out the fifth ward of Chi-
cago to attach it to a group of republican counties south of the
city. 4
Under the constitutional provision limiting the session to
twenty-five days the last hours were characterized by hurry,
confusion, and carelessness. Members of "the third house"
or "lobbyists" busily plied their trade, especially the repre-
sentatives of insurance companies of which seventy-one were
incorporated. Party newspapers on both sides delicately hinted
and then boldly charged fraud, bribery, and other corrupt prac-
tices, amid which 899 bills were passed, often without any
knowledge of their provisions. These were mostly private or
local bills, many of which were enacted as parts of omnibus
measures which were jammed through by logrolling tactics.
Everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when the announce-
ment of adjournment was made. 5
On April 3, shortly after the legislative excitement sub-
sided, the tidings reached Illinois of the occupation of Rich-
mond by the union forces. The appearance of this dispatch
in " extras " upon the streets caused the citizens to gather in
wildest enthusiasm; flags were raised, church and fire bells
began to ring, and cannon salutes reverberated upon the air.
That night, brass bands and rockets summoned the people to
further celebration; bonfires lit the sky with their glare and
the intoxication of victory continued to a late hour. 6 Grant's
and Lincoln's names were on everyone's lips. Citizens proudly
4 Chicago Times, January 23, 1865.
5 The Tribune considered it as welcome as the coincident announcement
of the victory of an American horse on the French turf. Chicago Tribune,
February 17, 24, 28, 1865; Chicago Times, February 18, March 4, 14, 1865;
Joltet Signal, February 21, 28, 1865.
6 Illinois State Journal, April 4, 1865; Chicago Tribune, April 4, 1865;
Carthage Republican, April 6, 1865.
390 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
rejoiced that Illinois had contributed not only the largest
quotas of men but two loyal sons who as civil magistate
and as military leader had conducted the union cause to
victory.
A week later public rejoicing was renewed upon the an-
nouncement of the surrender of General Lee's army. The
people were happy in the belief that peace, with the beneficent
blessings that follow in its train, was about to return to the
republic. "There was a smile on every face happiness in
every heart. Booming guns, clanging bells, streaming banners,
and the tumultuous cheers of a happy populace told the public
joy and proclaimed it to the world. But in a few short hours
all this was changed. The peo.ple went about the streets mourn-
fully, the bells tolled, the flag of the Republic was hung at half
mast, and the hope of immediate Peace, which made the coun-
try glad, vanished like a beautiful vision of the night for
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, who in the days of his triumph had
become the champion of the pacification of the South by con-
ciliation, had fallen under the hand of an assassin, just as he
was about to accomplish the grandest and most solemn problem
of statesmanship in the history of the world." 7
Abraham Lincoln had been accorded a martyr's crown;
friend and foe alike bore their tribute to his feet. " The great
stateman, the pure man, the humane adversary of a wicked
rebellion, the true Christian, is assassinated," sorrowed the
Paxton Record. 9 . " A man upon whom, through four years of
diversified: hopes and fears, of doubtings and prayers, had at
last centered the confidence and love of a nation, was stricken
down in the hour of his triumph and vindication," eulogized the
editor of the Carthage Republican, a political antagonist. 9
The Chicago Times, convinced that the presidential mantle had
fallen upon the shoulders of a man in whom nobody felt confi-
dence, proclaimed the sincere sorrow of all northern democrats :
"Widely as they have differed with Mr. Lincoln, greatly as
their confidence in him has been shaken, they yet saw in the
indications of the last few days of his life that he might com-
7 Cairo Morning Nevis, April 20, 1865.
8 Paxton Record, April 20, 1865.
9 Carthage Republican, April 20, 1865.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 391
mand their support in the close of the war, as he did in the
beginning. 10
No finer homage, perhaps, can be found than that paid by
the Cairo Democrat which within a twelvemonth had pro-
claimed Lincoln as a "usurper and tyrant who is only fit to
split rails;" it now commented: "Illinois claims Abraham
Lincoln as her gift to the nation; and receives back his lifeless
body, marred by traitors, weeping, like Niobe, and refusing to
be comforted. Many of us have been active opponents of his
administration have warred against him with the determina-
tion of earnest enemies In the past, we believed
him to be pursuing the wrong path of public policy, and. we
told the world so, using language the strength of which was
prompted by the passions of the passing moment; but when
the end drew nigh, .... we saw this man whom we
had condemned, rise above party, and disregarding his private
anger, if he had any, become the great conciliator." 11
The sincerity of democratic mourning was attested by the
approval which had just been extended to Lincoln's policy in
the matter of reconstruction. Indeed, the conciliatory meas-
ures projected by him for the restoration of the insurgent states
received a warmer welcome from the opposition press than
they were accorded by a large number of vindictive repub-
lican organs. In the last few weeks of his life his clemency
and magnanimity toward the vanquished south had, in the
minds of many democrats, absolved him from the trammels
of party; with his martyrdom he attained an indisputable title
to nationality. 12
Democrats and republicans alike were skeptical of the qual-
ifications of Andrew Johnson for the chief magistracy. The
rumor had spread broadcast that on the occasion of his inau-
guration as vice president he had taken his oath of office and
made his inaugural address in a state of intoxication; the Chi-
cago Tribune undertook to verify the report and proclaimed
Johnson's conduct a national disgrace. It demanded his- resig-
nation, declaring: " In the event of the President's death the
10 Chicago Times, April 17, 1865.
11 Cairo Weekly Democrat, May n, 1865; cf. ibid., July 14, 1864.
12 Chicago Times, April 18, 22, 26, 1865; Joliet Signal, April 25, 1865.
392 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Vice-President succeeds to his place. Who can measure the
calamities that would befall the country if the Presidential
chair were filled by a person who becomes grossly intoxicated
on the gravest public occasion? Such a contingency may well
appall us." 13 This opinion was shared by other republican
journals of Illinois, while the democrats took pleasure in tracing
Johnson's condition to "the license and corruption of his
party." 14
When, however, Johnson did become Lincoln's successor,
his position was studied from a new angle. In him democrats
saw an advocate of vindictive reconstruction who, from impo-
tence as presiding officer of the senate, had. advanced to the
nation's highest seat of authority. Their horror at this turn
of events was matched only by the 1 satisfaction of radicals
who had grown disgusted with the increasing soft-heartedness
of Abraham Lincoln. From them came an outburst of applause
at the very first announcement of the new president that he
would be careful " not to- pursue any policy which would pre-
vent the government from visiting punishment on the guilty
leaders who caused the rebellion." The Chicago Tribune
opened its arms to Andrew Johnson. "That's the talk," it
declared. " Johnson's little finger will prove thicker than were
Abraham Lincoln's loins. While he whipped them gently with
cords, his successor will scourge them with a whip of scorpions.
He knows who they are and what they are. He hates slavery
and has little affection for its high priests. There will be
thorough work made of those who hatched and led the rebel-
lion." 15 " The loyal heart of the people," explained the Rock-
ford Register, April 22, 1865, "since the surrender and parol-
ing of Lee's army, has been fearful that our late President was
too full of the 'milk of human kindness' to enable him to
deal justly with traitors. However this might have been, all
the evidence we can gather as to Andrew Johnson's sentiments,
points to the assurance that no such fears need be entertained
regarding him."
13 Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1865; Rockford Democrat, March 16, 1865;
Rockford Register, March 18, 1865.
14 Chicago Times, March 15, 1865.
15 Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1865; Aurora Beacon, April 20, 1865; Rock-
ford Register, April 22, 1865.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 393
The democrats, however, reminded themselves that John-
son's political training had been in the democratic school; they
hoped that, as a straightforward states rights democrat right
up to the time of secession, he would administer the govern-
ment in accordance with those principles. " He must rise above
party and factions and act only for the people," they urged.
" He must not be a hangman but a statesman." Then swift
came the confirmation of their hopes; when Johnson took
an early occasion to put his foot upon the state suicide doctrine,
the democrats rejoiced that a point had been scored in their
favor, and when in an amnesty and a reconstruction proclama-
tion, both under date of May 29, he adopted and extended
Lincoln's reconstruction policy, democrats exultingly pro-
claimed that he was taking " true democratic ground." 16 u May
it not have been in God's providence," asked the Cairo Demo-
crat in an editorial entitled " Radicalism Rampant," " that An-
drew Johnson was raised from the level of the people to the
high eminence which alone could check the before resistless
flood?" 17
The republicans were taken decidedly aback. For a time
they held off open criticism, putting their energies into ridicule
of the new born democratic faith in and Quixotic defense of
Andrew Johnson. By July, however, they were ready to
prophesy shame and disaster as the logical fruits of the presi-
dent's policy. "We do not believe that he has 'Tylerized'
gone over to the enemy that only three months ago would
have gladly hung him," was the dubious assurance of the Chi-
cago Tribune. By September certain republicans were pre-
paring to read Johnson out of the party, although Dr. C. H.
Ray of the Chicago Tribune protested against this lack of
patience. 19 Democrats were also divided as to how much reli-
ance they could place on Johnson; many opened their arms
to welcome him to their ranks a democratic meeting at
Springfield called by prominent members of the party enthusi-
16 Chicago Times, April 21, 25, 1865; Jollet Signal, April 25, 1865; Cairo
Democrat, May 3, 1865; Chicago Tribune, May 2, 1865; Carthage Republican,
May 11, 1865.
17 Cairo Democrat, June 15, 1865; Joliet Signal, June 6, 27, 1865.
18 Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1865; Aurora Beacon, July 27, 1865.
19 C. H. Ray to Trumbull, September 29, 1865, Trumull manuscripts.
394 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
astically indorsed Johnson's policies; others, however, held
aloof, agreeing with the Cairo Democrat that " President
Johnson is like the Irishman's flea, when you put your
finger on him he is not there. One day he is held up as a
model democrat, opposed to negro suffrage and all that,
and the next day he is reported as an advocate of negro
suffrage." 20
Developments continued along these lines until the end of
the year. The Chicago Tribune, seeking advantage from the
situation, tried to disarm the democrats by proclaiming an era
of good feeling: "The Copperheads vie with the Republicans
of the North in fealty to a Republican and abolition adminis-
tration, and denounce even friendly criticism as insidious trea-
son." 21 The Cairo Democrat in alarm became more cautious
and issued a warning that " the Democracy should be careful
to not praise him [Johnson] beyond his merits." 22 Yet John-
son's first annual message, which has since been discovered to
have been the work of George Bancroft, the historian, proved
such a temperate and conciliatory document that it met with
the formal approval of democratic as well as republican jour-
nals. The republicans, satisfied with the ferment at work among
their opponents, again turned to consider the growing distrust
of President Johnson in their own ranks. The problem of
concealing it was becoming increasingly difficult; within a few
weeks came the opening breach between Andrew Johnson
and the radical republican majority in congress, and there-
after the democrats began to rally more and more to his
support. 23
Republican leaders continued to wrestle with the problem
of their relations to Andrew Johnson. A band of radicals,
including many German republicans, were in favor of throw-
ing him overboard on the ground that he had "Tylerized"
the government and gone over to the enemy. There were
20 Cairo Democrat clipped in Illinois State Journal, September 15, 1865;
Cairo Democrat, September 16, 1865; Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1865.
21 Ibid., October 26, 1865; Rockford Register, October 28, 1865.
22 Cairo Democrat, October 30, 1865.
28 Illinois State Journal, December 6, 1865; Chicago Tribune, December 6,
1865; Rockford Register, December 9, 1865; Belleville Democrat, December 9,
30, 1865; Carthage Republican, December 14, 1865; Central Illinois Gazette,
December 15, 1865; Canton Weekly Register, December 18, 1865.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 395
many, however, who still retained " faith in the enlightened
patriotism of 'Andy Johnson" 1 and hoped that moderate
counsels might prevail and save the party and the president
;from becoming involved in unnecessary and fatal antagonisms;
this group included such notables as Senator Trumbull, Dr.
C. H. Ray, and Newton Bateman, as well as General Allen C.
Fuller, speaker of the house in the session of 1865, an ^ D. L.
Phillips, part proprietor of the State Journal and United States
marshal for the southern district of Illinois. 24 Feeling that a
break with the president would involve the overthrow of the
party and leave Andrew Johnson cock-of-the-walk, they were
for accepting the principles of his annual message and for
avoiding the " consummate Folly " of "splitting hairs on the
proposition, whether the rebel states are in or out of the
Union." 25
All republicans who took this view, however, were stout
supporters of two bills that Senator Trumbull introduced on
January 5, 1866, a freedman's bureau bill and a civil rights
bill. These measures sought to secure to the freedmen pro-
vision for food, clothing, and shelter on the one hand and on
the other the civil rights that were regarded as the corollary
of the trumpet call of freedom. It was generally expected
that the president would approve of the freedman's bureau
bill and it was promptly pushed to passage; when on February
19 it was returned with the executive veto, Andrew Johnson
lost the support of practically every wing of the republican
party in Illinois; his veto of the civil rights bill on
March 27 widened the breach and unified the republican
opposition.
While the republicans in congress rallied to enact these
measures over the president's veto, Illinois leaders marshaled
their forces to defeat Johnson in the coming elections. In the
contests of 1865, involving merely the local and county offices,
republican politicians had been scandalized at the general tend-
24 H. Schroder to Trumbull, December 23, 1865, Trumbull manuscripts; see
letters from these and others to Trumbull in December, 1865, and January, 1866.
"There is a strong disposition to make an issue with the President on the part
of some, but for one I do not sympathise with it." Trumbull to Phillips, Decem-
ber 21, 1865, Phillips manuscripts.
25 C. H. Ray to Trumbull, February 7, 1866, Jason Marsh to Trumbull,
January 8, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts.
396 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ency of the returned soldiers to criticize the union nominations
as drawing too heavily upon civilians. In many counties rival
"soldiers tickets" or republican "bolters" had been placed
in the field and had received assistance from the democrats
who often either made no nominations or fused with the sol-
diers. At the polls the independent tickets had usually been
defeated; the republican leaders, after reading a sermon to the
bolters rebuking them for attempting minority rule and for
giving comfort to the common enemy in a way that would
undermine the unity, harmony, and organization of the re-
publican party, had promised to bestow a proper attention upon
the soldiers in the future. 26
The republicans redeemed these pledges in the elections
of 1866, when the veterans of the Civil War came into their
own. General John A. Logan, who had now taken up his
residence in Chicago, was nominated by acclamation by the
republican or "union" state convention for congressman-at-
large. Logan was the idol of the soldiers, although many
republican leaders were unwilling to believe that with his
entrance into the republican ranks he had recovered complete
respectability. 27 General G. W. Smith was nominated for
state treasurer, to make the race as a teammate of Newton
Bateman, candidate for state superintendent of public instruc-
tion. General Charles E. Lippincott and General Green B.
Raum were named to lead the forlorn republican hope in Egyp-
tian districts; but in general the old political leaders held to
their berths in congress; on the other hand, in the contests for
seats in the state legislature, the soldiers were given a generous
share of the nominations.
The strength of the soldier wing was doubtless increased
by the organization of the Grand Army of the Republic. This
association like the Union League originated in the state of
26 Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1865; Joliet Signal, November 14, 1865;
Central Illinois Gazette, November 17, 24, 1865. In the spring of 1866 the
Illinois Soldiers' College and Military Academy was incorporated and organized
at Fulton, Whiteside county, to educate as many as possible of the 5,000 disabled
soldiers in the state to earn a living by intellectual rather than physical labor.
Rockford Register, December 15, 1866, July 6, 1867; D. S. Covet to Trumbull,
May 7, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts.
27 D. L. Phillips to Trumbull, December 26, 1865, George T. Brown to
Trumbull, August 16, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 397
Illinois; after its beginnings in April, 1866, at Decatur, it rap-
idly spread over all the northern states. Its founder, Dr. B.
F. Stephenson, surgeon in the Fourteenth Illinois infantry,
served as provisional Illinois department commander for a few
months until General John M. Palmer won out over General
Logan for the post of regular head of the organization in the
state. Illinois contributed in General Stephen A. Hurlbut, the
first G. A. R. commander-in-chief. This association, though
organized for fraternal, charitable, and patriotic purposes, ex-
ercised a formidable political influence. 28
While the soldiers and republican politicians were busy-
ing themselves with campaign preparations, the democrats
were arranging to take advantage of Johnson's apostasy. John-
son clubs were organized in Illinois communities from Chicago
to Cairo; 29 in certain cities, moreover, the corporal's guard
of republicans still clinging to Johnson were recruited into
republican Johnson clubs which busily pointed out that the
president's reconstruction policy was the same as that inaugu-
rated by Abraham Lincoln the only policy that could give
peace and permanence to the divided and distracted country.
The Johnson supporters, as "conservatives," appealed to all
true union men to rally with them to oppose the machinations
of the " radicals." A few prominent republicans led the exodus
into the "conservative" camp. Congressman A. J. Kuyken-
dall of the Cairo district, the only republican member of the
Illinois delegation who sympathized with Johnson, who had
voted against the freedman's bureau bill and whose absence
alone had prevented a negative vote on the civil rights bill,
yielded his claims to political preferment at the hands of the
republicans. 30 Thomas J. Turner, chairman of the republican
state central committee, supported "the president's plan of
restoration" as against the congressional plan of reconstruc-
tion and on that account submitted his resignation, while the
appointment of Orville H. Browning as secretary of the inte-
28 D. L. Phillips to Trumbull, June 10, 17, 24, 1866, G. T. Allen to Trumbull,
June 14, 28, 1866, George T. Brown to Trumbull, August 16, 1866, Trumbull
manuscripts.
29 Chicago Tribune, March 31, May 24, 1866; Cairo Democrat, April 13,
1866; Jacksonville Journal, July 2, 17, 28, 1866.
30 John Olney to Trumbull, April 19, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts; Chicago
Tribune, May 8, 1866; Cairo Democrat, January 9, November 22, 1867.
398 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
rior, as a reward for his support of Johnson was a distinct
blow to the " radical" cause. 31
Democratic preparations for the campaign were completed
August 28 at Springfield at a state convention presided over
by General John A. McClernand. This gathering of "con-
servatives," attended by Johnson republicans like T. J. Turner,
selected a ticket of war democrats: for congressman-at-large
Colonel T. Lyle Dickey, an old-time whig of Ottawa, 32 Colonel
Jesse J. Phillips of Montgomery county for state treasurer,
and, as a distinct " debt of gratitude " to the soldiers, Colonel
John M. Crebs of White county for superintendent of public
instruction. The convention approved the policy of President
Johnson and rebuked the radical majority of congress for its
ruthless disregard of the constitution; in order to secure the
advantage of the republican rejection of an eight-hour reso-
lution, it supported the claims of labor for a reduced working
schedule; it urged the taxation of plutocratic bondholders and
declared the greenbacks a safer and better currency than
national bank notes; and, finally, proclaimed a sympathy for
the people of Ireland and for the oppressed of every nation-
ality. This platform anticipated many of the issues that were
appearing on the political horizon.
One feature of the campaign was the visit of President
Johnson, who, in the company of such notables as Secretary
of State Seward, Secretary of Navy Welles, Admiral Farragut,
and General Grant, came to assist in dedicating the Douglas
monument at Chicago, and who, after an excursion of the presi-
dential cortege to Bloomington, paid a visit to the grave of
Lincoln at Springfield. This pilgrimage to the homes of the
two foremost Illinoisians Johnson converted into an election-
eering tour characterized by few formal addresses and numer-
ous unmannerly stump speeches. Although this visit served to
arouse the enthusiasm of the democrats and attached them
more closely to their new standard bearer, yet Johnson's fre-
quent passionate denunciation of his opponents and breaches of
31 T. T. Turner to James R. Root, May 22, 1866 (ms. copy), Trumbull manu-
scripts; Illinois State Register, August 7, 1866; Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1866.
32 Illinois State Register, August 29, 1866; Ottawa Weekly Republican,
August 30, 1866; Chicago Tribune, August 31, 1866; Cairo Democrat, Septem-
ber 2, 1866; Joliet Signal, October 23, 1866.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 399
the traditions of presidential dignity only confirmed the rad-
icals in their opposition and made reluctant moderate repub-
licans decide to repudiate the president whose administration
they had sincerely desired to support. The city council of
Springfield, while extending a formal invitation to General
Grant and Admiral Farragut, went as far as to reject a pro-
posal to give the president a public reception. 33
If the democrats gained advantage from the presidential
visit, the republicans had their turn when in October a group
of southern union men from a convention at Philadelphia
journeyed to Illinois to visit the grave of the martyred Lin-
coln ; they followed the same route as that taken by President
Johnson, whose "swing around the circle" they were intended
to offset. Elaborate arrangements were made for their recep-
tion, in which the Grand Army of the Republic was marshaled
in full strength. After a welcoming ovation in Chicago, Octo-
ber i, they scattered over the state for a few days to contribute
to the republican campaign. On the tenth, after visits to Kan-
kakee, Peoria, Du Quoin, Mattoon, Cairo, Canton, Pana, and
Alton, they came together for a grand celebration at Spring-
field, where they thrilled Illinois republicans with their testi-
monials of devotion to the simon-pure union cause. 34
The visitors served to distract some attention from the
interesting race between General Logan and Colonel Dickey
for the privilege of representing the state in congress. Dickey's
supporters made a feeble appeal to the soldier vote, which was
reminded of his heroic deeds at Vicksburg. Logan, on the
other hand, was the favorite of thousands of Illinois veterans
who with him had bared their bosoms to the storm of war
from Belmont to the victory of 1865. So strong was his polit-
ical position that many had looked upon him as the logical
successor to Trumbull's seat in the United States senate;
indeed, Logan's nomination to congress was in part a device
to eliminate him from the senatorial field, although he still
continued to worry the friends of Trumbull. 35
33 Jacksonville Journal, September 6, 1866; Cairo Democrat, September 12,
1866; Joliet Signal, September 18, 1866.
34 Chicago Tribune, October i, 12, 1866; Du Quoin Recorder, October 5,
1866; Canton Weekly Register, October 8, 1866.
35 George T. Brown to Trumbull, November 7, 1865, Trumbull manuscripts.
400 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
The democrats soon decided that the skeleton of Logan's
past was one which they might well cause to stalk forth among
his admirers. Although they found it impossible advanta-
geously to play up the charges of cowardice made by Colonel
Reynolds and others, they insisted that " Black Jack," the
" renegade from the Democracy," had been selected to do " the
dirty work for the radical party, as he used to do it for the
democratic party." 36 When the "warrior orator" in a whirl-
wind campaign began drawing out by thousands the voters in
every part of Illinois, his erstwhile associates brought out their
heavy artillery in an attempt to shatter the bulwarks of his
strength. Logan "would like to make treason odious," they
said, "Well, so do we, and would suggest .... that
Logan himself is a fit subject to commence on." 37 They
charged him as a secessionist in 1861, having denounced the
war as " a d d abolition crusade " and with having drummed
up an "Egyptian corps" of recruits to the southern army.
Said the Chicago Times'. "Almost every prominent journal
in the state (the Chicago Tribune among the number) de-
nounced him as a traitor and a rebel." 38
Then "chapters from Logan's record" were published in
the democratic press. He was charged with having made
numerous speeches in the spring of 1861, denouncing the doc-
trine of coercion and declaring that he could never give aid,
comfort, or countenance to an attempt at conquering the rebel-
lion by force ; he was pointed out as the sponsor for the reso-
lutions adopted by a meeting in Marion, Williamson county
on April 15, 1861, which demanded in the event of continued
coercive policy, a division of the state to detach southern Illi-
nois; he was charged with having denounced William J. Allen,
his law partner, as a "dirt-eater" for having taken a leading
part in movements to counteract the Marion resolutions; it was
declared that, in June, 1861, on account of a general belief that
he would be arrested for disloyalty, William J. Allen and
36 The Chicago Tribune had before 1860 bestowed upon him the title of
"Dirty-work Logan." Illinois State Register, August 14, 15, 1866; Chicago
Evening Journal, November 4, 1865; Joliet Signal, October 24, November 7, 1865.
37 Mt. Vernon Free Press clipped in Jonesboro Gazette, July 28, 1866;
Illinois State Register, August n, 1866.
38 Chicago Times clipped in ibid., August 14, 1866.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 401
others advised him to wait upon General Prentiss with assur-
ance that thereafter his conduct would be unobjectionable;
that in purchasing a revolver from Thomas Wilson, who was
mayor of Cairo in 1866, he had explained: "I am going to
attend the extra session of Congress and make a speech, telling
what I think about this d d Abolition war, and I intend to
blow out the brains of the first d d scoundrel who questions
my right to do so;" that it was generally believed in Egypt
that Logan was raising his regiment to fight in behalf of the
confederacy; that in June, 1861, after the arrest of Colonel
James D. Pulley, Logan raised an armed force to drive off
union soldiers who might come to assail the rights of the people
of Marion; and that Logan bitterly denounced Douglas for
his historic war speech before the Illinois legislature as no
better than an abolitionist. 39
'The nine counts of this indictment were represented in
every issue of the Cairo Democrat for October, 1866, and
taken up by other democratic papers. Logan entered the war,
they declared, for the same reason that he entered politics
to get office. " His love was for the ultra fanatics of seces-
sion, whose tool he had so long been whose ' dirty work' he
had so willingly performed It was not till he
found that the patriotic Democracy of Southern Illinois would
not follow him into the ranks of the rebel army that he dis-
covered that he was on the weather side. Thereupon, true to
his office-seeking instinct, he turned a complete somersault,
and entered the Union Army;" 40 now "in the desperate hope
of seducing 'Egypt' into supporting the hellish schemes of the
disunion Congress the Radicals placed the apostate Logan at
the head of their ticket." 41
The devoted wife of General Logan rose nobly to his de-
fense. She journeyed to Marion and secured a statement signed
by political opponents of Logan, some of whom had served
in the southern army, which pronounced all the charges against
Logan untrue. At the same time also his brother-in-law, Hibert
B. Cunningham, wrote from Mississippi absolving Logan from
39 Cairo Democrat, September 28, October 2, 1866.
40 Chicago Times clipped in Illinois State Register, August 14, 1866; Belle-
ville Democrat, September i, 1866.
41 Chester Picket Guard, September 5, 1866.
402 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
any responsibility for his going south to fight as a member of
Captain Thorndike Brooks' company. Logan's opponents
replied with a formal affidavit from one William M. Davis,
who claimed that he had gone with Brooks' company "by and
under the advice and influence of John A. Logan and his
brother-in-law, H. B. Cunningham, who told me that Logan
would join. us in two or three months." Next a statement ap-
peared over the signatures of six of the eight "signers" of
Mrs. Logan's certificate, which declared that their names had
been used " without our consent, for we are satisfied the charges
are substantially true, as published in the Cairo Democrat,
Chicago Times, and other journals. Any amount of additional
testimony in reference to Gen. Logan's anti-war action and
speeches here in 1861, can be had from the best citizens of all
parties." 42
These charges were taken up by various democratic stump
speakers, while Dickey, Logan's opponent, conducted a clean
campaign, concentrating mainly on the reconstruction issue.
The two rivals met in joint debate at Carbondale and Decatur.
General Logan displayed a good deal of fire and at times
venom. "He abused the Democracy in most insulting lan-
guage; blustered, talked loud, slapped his hands frantically,
and shook his finger provokingly at the Colonel ....
[he] bellowed invectives, and earned the reputation of being
Brownlow's rival in t^ie use of 'low-down' language." 43
According to an account of the Carbondale debate, when
Dickey touched upon Logan's secessionist record, Logan de-
clared that whoever made these charges were liars; thereupon
his own sister, Mrs. Blanchard, rose and declared that he had
furnished his brother-in-law with financial aid to- assist the
rebellion. 44
It was in reply to the Carbondale denial by Logan that the
editors of the Cairo Democrat drew up the nine specifications
which they held themselves ready to prove. Whatever Colonel
Dickey lacked in venom was more than counterbalanced by
some of his supporters. The Chester Picket Guard hoped to
42 Cairo Democrat, October 21, 27, 1866.
43 Ibid., September 30, 1866; Chicago Tribune, October i, 2, 17, 1866;
Du Quoin Recorder, October 5, 1866.
** Salem Advocate clipped in Belleville Democrat, October 6, 1866.
THE MILITARY POLITICIAN 403
deliver the state already disgraced by " such a dishonest, rad-
ical, lecherous, blasphemous and drunken, dirty, beastly thing
as Dick Oglesby" from "that low vulgar, dirty and hypo-
critical Logan. Maggots would sicken on him." 45
The democrats capitalized to the full the desertion of
Johnson republicans who joined the "conservative" forces.
Besides T. J. Turner of Freeport and ex-Senator Browning,
who was said to control the executive patronage in Illinois,
a long list of converts was claimed, including Judge J. O.
Norton, Judge G. D. A. Parks of Joliet, State Senator Green
of Centralia, and T. L. Breckinridge, who in the union state
convention had nominated Logan for congressman-at-large.
The party sought to cement the attachment of the Irish to the
democratic ranks by extending their approval to the Fenian
brotherhood, which was now taking by storm the Celtic popu-
lation of the state. The republicans at the same time made a
strong bid for the Irish vote with a huge Fenian picnic near
Chicago in August; although they made some converts, they
were handicapped by the prevailing traditional allegiance of
the Irish. 46
In the fiercely contested canvass, the advantage lay with
the republicans who had set out to win. From Senator Trum-
bull and Yates down the best campaigners entered the field.
The full influence of the Union League organization was
wielded for their candidates; the G. A. R. posts were sources
of additional strength. When the democrats hurled at them
the epithets of "nigger-equality party" and "miscegens," they
replied with salvos against the "treason party" and "copper-
heads." When the bitter contest came to an end in November
it was found that the republicans had won a sweeping victory,
involving over fifty thousand majority for Logan, ten out of
the other thirteen congressmen, and a two-thirds majority of
the legislature. Illinois, an old stronghold of the democracy,
became a citadel of republican power.
45 Chester Picket Guard, September 12, 1866.
46 Aurora Beacon, August 16, 23, 1866; Joliet Signal, August 7, Septem-
ber 18, 25, 1866; Illinois State Register, September 27, 1866; Rockford Register,
August 18, 1866; Chicago Tribune, October 16, November 6, 1866.
XIX. THE SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS, 1867-1870
DURING the Civil War the people of Illinois had given
themselves over entirely to national political issues ; after
the election of 1866, however, they wearily yielded to a reaction
which reflected their satisfaction that the sectional issue had
passed the crisis. The political majority came to feel that,
with no effective opposition at home, they would do well to
intrust Andrew Johnson and the tedious reconstruction prob-
lems to the care of the overwhelming republican majority in
congress; the successive steps in the controversy between the
president and the legislative department were mere journal-
istic details which they could follow in the newspapers. It
was becoming high time, they realized, that problems vital to
the future of the state too long neglected and sidetracked
should receive full and earnest consideration.
When the general assembly convened on January 7, 1867,
the legislators first cleared the way for their new role by dis-
posing of the election of the United States senator. The claim
of Trumbull's supporters that the republican victory was a
verdict in favor of his reelection was subtly challenged by rival
candidates. The senator was criticized for " his lack of social
qualities, his austerity of manners, his aristocratic sympathies
and his natural tendencies toward conservatism." 1 For,
strangely enough, Trumbull, the leader of the radical forces
of Illinois during the Civil War, was a true conservative; and
he had now to encounter the censure of certain "radical"
critics. 2 General Logan, Governor Oglesby, and General
Palmer, leagued together in common cause against Trumbull,
were all ready to contest his claims. Palmer lay low for a
time; but when Logan and Oglesby, in order to hold their
1 Jacksonville Journal, January 8, 1867.
2 Trumbull might not have broken with Johnson had not the issue become
so direct and personal. Chicago Post, March 9, 1866.
404
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 405
own offices, transferred their claims to him he stepped out
into the open. He fast gained strength for his election through
the labors of the Grand Army of the Republic. Palmer's
friends insisted that their favorite, and not Trumbull, had
originated the civil rights act; Trumbull, however, succeeded
in refuting this claim indeed, as the people looked back upon
his record in congress, they could not gainsay his title to reelec-
tion. The factional contest came to an end in the republican
legislative caucus on the test vote to proceed to the nomination
of a candidate by viva voce vote, for Palmer's followers failed
decisively in their plans to secure a secret ballot; thereupon
Trumbull was nominated by acclamation. 3 The formal ballot-
ing in joint session gave the veteran statesman his credentials
for another six years in the senate.
Governor Oglesby in his message to the legislature recog-
nized that the day had passed when it sufficed to drag civil
war issues across the political arena; indeed, he bespoke the
needs of the state in a way that even secured the approval of
many political opponents. "War, with all its scourges, has
fled from our land, and gentle peace returns to heal its wounds,"
he pointed out. "A new career now opens to our State ....
It is our duty to hold constantly in view every interest of the
commonwealth; to bravely meet every requirement necessary
to the full development of our natural advantages ; to cherish
the arts and sciences; to foster education, the soul of the State;
and, with charitable hands, to meet and lift up the unfortu-
nate." 4
Before the assembly could consider the recommendations
of the governor it found itself engulfed by demands for pri-
vate legislation; lobbyists and logrolling forces were so active
that just to meet their insistent demands would have more than
consumed the forty-two days allotted by the constitution to
the normal session. Batches of questionable private bills were
forced through both houses without an adequate investigation
of their contents; into one omnibus three hundred and twelve
such items were bundled. A wave of criticism rose from
3 Illinois State Journal, January 14, 15, 1867; Chicago Tribune, January 12,
14, 15, 1867; Belleville Democrat, February 14, 1867; Cairo Democrat, Septem-
ber 10, 1867.
4 Reports General Assembly, 1867, 1:3, 46?.; Joliet Signal, January 15, 1867.
406 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
voters throughout the state and from the organs of both par-
ties, together with a demand for a revision of the constitution
to secure a longer session and to prohibit the creation of pri-
vate corporations by legislative enactment. "About ten or
twelve millions of dollars [have been] voted into the pockets
of corporations, contractors, and speculators," announced the
Carthage Republican, March 7, 1867. Charges of corrupt
rings and bargains and of direct bribery began to circulate to
such a degree that finally a special senate committee was
appointed to make an investigation. 5
Public legislation had to be scrambled through in the closing
days of the session. Proposals for railroad legislation and for
a constitutional amendment establishing "impartial suffrage"
in the state died of sheer neglect. Before dispersing the legis-
lature passed bills for the erection of a new penitentiary in
the southern part of the state, for the construction of a new
statehouse at an estimated cost of three million dollars, and
for the location of the industrial university; provision was
made for the regulation of warehouses and for the inaugura-
tion of a scheme of canal and river improvements, besides
action submitting to the people the question of a constitutional
convention.
Never had the adjournment of the general assembly met
with such a widespread feeling of relief; democrats and repub-
licans alike hailed the "blessed day" when "the most dis-
graceful Legislative body that ever convened in the State"
came to an end. Not only were the legislators lacking in dig-
nity even the senate being the scene of frequent disorder
with members shying books and paper wads at each other and
at the speaker; but, more important, they seemed lacking in
that essential virtue of honesty. 6 The shortcomings of the
majority were admitted on both sides, by the democrats out
6 Chicago Post, February 25, 28, 1867; Ottawa Weekly Republican, Janu-
ary 31, 1867; Chicago Tribune, February 18, 19, 1867; Joliet Signal, February
19, 1867; Cairo Democrat, February 26, 1867.
6 Ibid., March i, 1867. In such a scene, with the clerks vainly attempting
to read the bills then passing, the speaker, wielding the gavel with the grace of
a stone-cutter, declared the senate adjourned sine die. Chicago Tribune, March
i, i%6-j;Aurora Beacon, March 21, 1867. The Carthage Republican, March 7,
declared it " the most corrupt and imbecile legislature which ever disgraced the
commonwealth of Illinois."
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 407
of partisanism, and by the republicans because in the contest
for the spoils the party became divided into sectional groups
and into " rings." Critics of both parties in Chicago and
northern Illinois declared the statehouse and southern peni-
tentiary legislation a "direct and open steal" engineered by
an "industrial university-statehouse-penitentiary ring" which
secured to Champaign the location of the agricultural college. 7
Reenforced by the disappointed ambitions of other cities like
Decatur, which had looked to a transfer of the capital, they
launched an especially aggressive attack against the " swindle "
of the new statehouse law. The constitutionality of the legis-
lation was brought before the courts; and although for a six-
month the odds seemed to favor its rejection, the supreme
court ended the controversy by upholding the law. 8 Spring-
field forces, regardless of party withstanding the opposition
tLat came from every corner of the state, launched a counter
attack against "the canal swindle" enacted by a "corrupt
squadron " of northern Illinois interests. " A bigger steal upon
the people of the State than is contemplated by its pet measure,
the canal bill, can hardly be conceived," declared the State
Journal. " What interests have the people of Central Illinois
in widening the Michigan canal at an expense of twenty or
thirty million dollars so as to make it navigable for boats?
What interest have the people of Southern Illinois in such a
project? Not one cent's worth. Their business and commer-
cial relations all lead in another direction." 9
In the midst of this confusing squabble Governor Oglesby
whipped up the general assembly in two special sessions on
June ii and June 14 to adjust certain minor matters and to
amend the assessment laws of the state so as to make the shares
of national bank stock liable for taxes. The confirmation of
his nominees for canal commissioners and southern penitentiary
commissioners the senate recalcitrantly voted to postpone until
7 Chicago Post, February 28, 1867; Chicago Tribune, March 6, 1867; St.
Louis Democrat clipped in Cairo Democrat, March 3, 1867; Aurora Beacon,
March 21, 1867.
8 Chicago Post, February 25, March 15, 1867; Chicago Tribune, July i, 8,
ii, 13, 16, 18, 19, 1867; Rockford Register, February 23, 1867; Illinois State
Register, October 29, 1867; Jonesboro Gazette, February 23, 1867; Jacksonville
Journal, February 12, 27, March 2, 1867.
9 Illinois State Journal, May 4, 14, 18, 1867.
4 o8 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the next session. 10 As a result two of the most important
pieces of legislation practically became a dead letter. The
statehouse appropriation was finally saved from destruction,
and the location of the university at Urbana survived the
opposition; a warehouse regulation act was the only import-
ant measure which was put through without a barrage of
criticism.
These legislative developments are indicative of a period
of serious party disintegration, especially in the ranks of the
republican majority in Illinois. Side issues crept into the local
and county elections of the year and often enabled the demo-
crats to make important gains; republican majorities were
reversed in Peoria, Fulton, Mason, and certain other counties.
Illinois republicans, surveying these losses in the light of the
approaching presidential campaign, promptly connected them-
selves with the movement for Grant's nomination, which they
expected would draw out the full strength of the party. The
democrats, alarmed at the republican enthusiasm for a man
who had always been considered a democrat, now pointed out
that Grant's candidacy was an indication of the fears of their
opponents, who were willing to sacrifice principle for the sake
of success. Sophisticated republican politicians, indeed, while
conceding Grant's strength with the people and the Grand
Army of the Republic, often had " serious doubts as to his
fitness for a civil administration." n But as a fellow citizen,
as a man with slight interest in partisan politics, and as a mod-
erate on reconstruction, General Grant seemed on the score of
availability to possess the formidable strength now imperative
to the party.
Grant was not, moreover, a figure who would accentuate a
line of cleavage in the republican ranks that had appeared
during the impeachment proceeding against President John-
son; for, although the hatred of the president had reached
such proportions as to suggest the desirability of his removal,
all could not concede the honesty of such a course. Many
Illinois republicans had been loud in their demand for impeach-
10 Aurora Beacon, June 27, 1867; Champaign County Union and Gazette,
July 10, 1867.
11 Koerner, Memoirs, 2:480; Ottawa Free Trader, November 2, 1867.
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 409
ment, and Governor Oglesby had sent a formal demand to
Washington for action. 12 When finally proceedings were
instituted, John A. Logan took an active part as one of the
managers in the prosecution. Some republicans, however,
agreed with the democrats who characterized the impeach-
ment as a partisan attack and the trial a farce; not many
republicans were willing to acknowledge this, but the Jackson-
ville Journal admitted that it was a case of " the bluffer
bluffed." "The impeachment trial of the president is a neces-
sity, because he cannot be removed in any other way, but it
must necessarily be, in some measure, a farce." 13 The Chicago
Tribune, which admitted that the indictment was in part a
political attack, insisted that Johnson be convicted only if
found guilty as charged; 14 on the other hand, certain repub-
licans flatly demanded a conviction. The Tribune received
advance information of the probable acquittal of the presi-
dent, which was borne out when Senator Trumbull and six
other republicans, including erstwhile radicals, voted with the
democrats to defeat conviction. Although Trumbull's vote
was in line with his entire course on reconstruction, it fell like
a blow upon many of his constituents, and a bitter attack was
launched upon him.
Certain republicans reconciled themselves to the failure of
the impeachment trial on the score that it would save the
party in the midst of the presidential contest from another
internecine war on the tariff question a serious question for
the Illinois branch of the party. They had yielded the prin-
ciple of protection in 1860, but under the heavy demand for
revenue the Civil War tariffs had carried the duties to a point
where they threatened to strangle the agricultural and produc-
ing interests of the Mississippi valley. "We are being con-
sumed by the good of New England and Pennsylvania,"
announced Dr. C. H. Ray. " If matters are not regulated
and on a fairer and juster principle, the west will be badly
injured before five years have elapsed. When will men see
that legislative interference in trade as in religion or morals
12 Illinois State Journal, January 8, 29, 1867; Belleville Democrat, Decem-
ber 12, 1867, March 12, 1868.
13 Jacksonville Journal, March 5, 1868.
14 Chicago Tribune, March 3, May 15, 1868.
4 io THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
is always mischievous?" 15 Early in 1866 a group of Chicago
republicans, including the publishers of the Chicago Tribune,
had organized a league for the protection to home labor as
against foreign trade which bent its energies toward prevent-
ing increased duties. Joseph Medill, " the oracle of the Pro-
tectionists in the West," together with Horace White and
other friends, threw their strength against such increases in
1866 and in 1867; they condemned the "gang of greedy
speculators [who] seem to have got hold of the House of
Representatives and are running the whole protection question
into the ground." 16
The party decided to bury its family quarrels in the love
feasts of the Chicago convention, for Illinois was again hon-
ored by the republicans in the selection of the lake city. There
on May 20 and 21 it was agreed that, in view of the general
situation and in view of the demand that the party be held
together for an approval of the votes of the thirty-five repub-
lican senators who held Johnson guilty as charged, no tariff
plank should be inserted in the national platform. 17 There,
too, General Grant was proposed by John A. Logan and unan-
imously nominated for the presidency, while Schuyler Colfax
was selected as the party's other standard bearer. Grant was
strong in the availability of a military hero, which more than
covered his shortcomings as a partisan.
Illinois democrats had at first offered Sidney Breese, chief
justice of the supreme court of Illinois, as their candidate for
the presidency, but it became evident that this was largely a
compliment to a favorite son; in the closing weeks of the pre-
convention campaign they generally took up George H. Pen-
dleton of Ohio as the western candidate, and the state con-
vention formally instructed the Illinois delegates to support
Pendleton. The national convention at New York, first mak-
ing concessions to the western section of the party in the
platform that was adopted, ran up the names of Horatio
15 C. H. Ray to Trumbull, January 15, 1866, Joseph Medill et al. to Trum-
bull, February 7, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts; Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1868.
16 Joseph Medill to Trumbull, July i, 1866, C. H. Ray to Trumbull, Feb-
ruary 2, 1866, E. C. Lamed to Trumbull, July 2, 1866, Horace White to Trumbull,
July 5, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts; Chicago Tribune, February 5, 1867.
17 Proceedings of the National Union Republican Convention, 1868, p. 84-85
et seq.
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 411
Seymour of New York and Francis P. Blair of Missouri.
Illinois democrats were decidedly disappointed with the nomi-
nation of Seymour, who represented the eastern point of view
on the currency question, which was coming to have so much
significance in the politics of the day. Illinois as a western
state was strongly in favor of inflation; it looked with suspicion
upon the eastern demand for the withdrawal of greenbacks
from circulation in order to hasten the resumption of specie
payments. Pendleton's strength in the west had in large part
grown out of his pet scheme for the payment of bonds in
greenbacks on an inflation policy, which was known as the
" Ohio idea." W. J. Allen and the Illinois delegation had
contended vigorously at the national convention in favor of
Pendleton's position, and since the convention had incorpo-
rated a greenback clause in its platform, the democrats decided
to interpret the nomination of Seymour, though a hard-money
man, in this light. 18
In state politics the old democratic leaders seem to have
become so discouraged as to refuse the use of their names;
the democrats, therefore, selected John R.' Eden of Moultrie
county to head their ticket against John M. Palmer, the almost
unanimous choice of the republicans; and their candidate to
oppose Logan for congressman-at-large was an unknown,
W. W. O'Brien of Peoria. Most of the republican nominees
were military men: besides Palmer and Logan, they named
General C. E. Lippincott for auditor, General E. N. Bates
for treasurer, Brevet General Bushnell for attorney-general,
and Colonel Dougherty for lieutenant governor, an old
Breckinridge democrat in 1860 and an early opponent of the
war. Here was a dish entirely to the liking of all brands of
Civil War veterans. 19 In the campaign that followed the
advantage lay decidedly with the republicans. In addition to
their disappointment at the national outlook, the democrats
were disheartened at their failure to secure a stronger state
18 Cairo Democrat, July 13, 1867, February 8, March 5, July 9, 16, 1868;
Illinois State Register, July 12, 1867, February n, 1868; Joliet Signal, July 16,
1867, February 8, 25, March 10, 1868; Belleville Democrat, July 25, 1867, July
16, 1868; Paxton Record, July 12, 1868; Carthage Republican, July 16, 1868.
19 Cairo Democrat, May 12, 1868; Champaign County Union and Gazette,
May 13, 1868; Ottawa Free Trader, May 30, 1868.
4 i2 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ticket. On most issues the democrats had to take the offensive,
while the republicans could contentedly trust to past accom-
plishments. With little ardor the democrats took up the task,
but duty drove them on. They began a campaign "to end
the reign of the bond holders .... by paying off these
bonds in the same kind of money which the law compels the
farmer, the mechanic and the laborer to take for the proceeds
of their honest toil;" 20 they asked the people of the state if
they were willing "to swallow the negro-suffrage pill prepared
for them" by the Chicago convention and asserted that it
was "the holy mission of Democracy .... to restore
political power exclusively to the Caucasian race." 21 The
people were called upon to behold the " radical platform "
with its "praises of the negro and promises to him but not a
word from which the overburdened white toiler can derive
any comfort;" it was the work of "a gathering of selfish and
corrupt politicians, whose only object is to scheme for office
and to devise means whereby they may be enabled to filch
from the National Treasury the money which is wrung from
the sweat and toil of the laboring white men of the nation." 22
The real issue, they proclaimed, was aristocracy versus democ-
racy: "We have also an aristocratic class of citizens endowed
with peculiar privileges, a bonded aristocracy, whose wealth is
exempt from taxation for the support of Government, and who
demand the interest due on their bonds paid in gold, while the
laborer and the mechanic must take a depreciated currency for
his labor." The new regime which would push on radical
reconstruction at a terrific expense to the already overburdened
taxpayer of the west would be " a regime of force, ....
introduced by a shoulder-strapped President, to culminate in
the long cherished hope of an empire." 23
Seymour, on the other hand, would reduce the expenses of
the government; would redeem the bonds in currency; would
simplify the revenue laws, and cut down taxation; would
modify the tariff laws, with a view to revenue, and not with a
view to protection; and would make capital instead of labor
20 Carthage Republican, July 23, 1868.
21 Rushville Times, July 2, 1868.
22 Belleville Democrat, June 25, 1868.
23 Rushville Times, July 30, 1868; Illinois State Register, July 29, 1868.
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 413
bear the burdens of taxation. He would cut down the army
and navy to a peace standard and put honest and efficient men
in office. 24
All these pleas fell on deaf ears. The republicans knew
their strength and proceeded to consolidate it, taking their
stand on past achievements. The Chicago Tribune of August 4
acknowledged that there were shortcomings within their party
but proclaimed the policy: " In the present contest, the Repub-
licans unite in demanding peace upon the basis of accomplished
facts, and in consonance with lawfully-enacted statutes, and in
requiring the payment of the public debt with ' the utmost good
faith' to all: while the Democracy sound the tocsin of insurrec-
tion and threaten repudiation in one form or another. He who
prefers a pacific and an honorable national policy will vote for
Grant and Coif ax: he who prefers internecine war and bank-
ruptcy will vote for Seymour and Blair."
On this ground the republicans stood like adamant; they
continued the canvass calmly and confidently, though some
attempt was made to give the campaign the ecfat which usually
attached to a military hero candidate. Grant clubs were formed
and uniformed companies of "tanners," recalling the former
occupation of the general, and the torchlight processions of
1860 were repeated. These were popular movements which
in bringing recruits further aroused the spite of the opposition.
Democratic journals declared that Grant and his father had
carried on another business during the war that of trading
in cotton; why not, they suggested, a cotton club with mem-
bers clothed in cotton batting? Moreover, they asked was a
man with " Grant's fondness for fast-horses, pup dogs, Havana
cigars and Bourbon whiskey" a fit candidate for the chief
magistracy? 25
The republicans met these aspersions by pointing out that
former members of the democratic party had forsaken their
old associates to support Grant; not only did Thomas J.
Turner of Freeport, whom the democrats had run for congress
two years ago, return to his old allegiance, but such lifelong
24 Carthage Republican, July 30, 1868.
25 Ibid., June u, 1868; Illinois State Register, July 30, August 10, 13, 1868;
Chicago Tribune, September 8, October 31, 1868.
4 i4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
democrats as Colonel I. N. Morris and Adolph Moses of
Quincy, O. Pool of Shawneetown, Judge Quimby of Monmouth
were listed as new republican recruits. 26 It was not strange,
therefore, that the republicans not only swept the state for
Grant with over fifty thousand majority but also turned the
state government over to General Palmer and their state ticket
to cooperate with a strongly republican legislature.
In January, 1869, Governor Oglesby turned the reins of
government over to his successor, John M. Palmer, who
brought to the gubernatorial office a reputation for calm, tem-
perate, broadminded statesmanship which augured well for a
clean administration. He had always been a moderate parti-
san, he had not forgotten his early democratic associations,
and conditions generally were favorable to the maintenance
of that popularity he had won as a military leader during the
Civil War. His inaugural address, conceived in the spirit of
nonpartisanship and progressivism, defined a sphere of state
rights that made the republicans hold their breath in consterna-
tion, while the democrats hailed it as a model state paper. 27 In
considering the general demand for corporation control and for
regulatory railroad legislation, Governor Palmer called atten-
tion to proposals to enlist the national government in the crea-
tion of corporations for the construction of railroads in Illinois
and adjacent states. Pointing out the confusion produced by
the Civil War as to the relative powers and duties of the
national and state governments, he declared: "Now that the
war is ended, and all proper objects attained, the public welfare
demands a recurrence to the true principles that underlie our
system of governments, and one of the best established and
most distinctly recognized of these is, that the federal govern-
ment is one of enumerated powers The state
governments are a part of the American system of govern-
ment. They fill a well defined place, and their just authority
must be respected by the federal government."
26 Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1868; Joliet Republican, June 13, 1868; Illinois
State Journal, June 17, August 28, September 9, 12, 17, October 12, 1868; Rock-
ford Gazette, June 18, 1868.
2T Ibid., January 28, 1869; Illinois State Register, January 12, 20, 1869;
Chicago Tribune, January 12, 1869; Cairo Evening Bulletin, January 14, 1869;
Joliet Signal, January 19, 1869; Rushville Times, January 21, 1869.
oo o o
o S2 00
99 OO Of*
OJASPEBc 00 O
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vti
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 415
Palmer pointed to the appearance after each session of
the general assembly of ponderous volumes "filled with acts
creating corporations for almost every purpose, clothed with
powers of the most extraordinary extent," and diplomatically
suggested the problems growing out of this situation. In clos-
ing he emphasized the duty of the legislators: "The people
of the State have confided to the General Assembly a great
trust. They expect a your hands the most careful scrutiny of
the operation of every department of the government. That
abuses, if any are found to exist, shall be corrected. They
demand the most rigid economy in the expenditures of the
public money. I have no doubt your efforts to promote their
happiness will meet their approval." 28
The legislature, however, cared little for the advice handed
out to it. Although Governor Oglesby upon retiring had left
an excellent message stressing public needs, and Governor
Palmer now added his suggestions for necessary legislation,
the assembly callously set out to duplicate the orgy of 1868.
Legislative "rings" and logrolling appropriation bills were
prepared before the session formally opened; and rumors of
"big steals" began to circulate, while the lobby, or "third
house," assembled in force. 29 Special legislation of all sorts
was jammed through; about seven hundred acts of incorpora-
tion were passed despite the constitutional provision which had
sought to prohibit that class of legislation. Again talk of cor-
ruption and bribery filled the atmosphere until the legislature
itself felt moved to order an investigation; this was a safe
enough proceeding, according to the Chicago Tribune, because
"the men who have 'money bills' in the Legislature are not
so green as to pay anything beyond liquor, cigars and board
until one day after adjournment never in any case until the
bill passes." When the legislature finally adjourned, opinions
differed as to the amount of its political jobbery: the Carthage
Republican, a democratic journal, was content to believe that
"compared with the former, the legislature is a model of all
virtues," although its dishonesty had been limited only "by
28 House Journal, 1869, i : 202-208.
29 Bloomington Pantograph clipped in Illinois Stale Journal, January 7,
1869; Joliet Republican, January 9, 1869; Illinois State Register, January 9, 12,
1869; Ottawa Free Trader, February 20, 1869.
416 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the impecunious character of the lobby;" the Tribune believed
that with bipartisan combinations for special interests and with
personal corruption which it was prepared to prove, it had
been " reckless beyond precedent." 30
Throughout the session Governor Palmer had conceived
it his duty to check what seemed to be hasty, injudicious, and
unscrupulous legislation with his veto; with the slaughtering
of seventy-two bills he established a new. record for the veto
power of the governor of Illinois and won golden opinions
from both democratic and republican critics of the legislature.
Such interference did little to stem the flood of legislation;
seventeen bills were hurried into law over the governor's merely
suspensive veto. Besides four hundred pages of public laws,
nearly three thousand five hundred pages of private legislation
forced their way into the statute books. 31
The more important items in the mass were: an appro-
priation of $400,000 for improvement in the Illinois river to
permit the uninterrupted movement of boats by way of the
Illinois and Michigan canal; the "penitentiary steal" an
appropriation of $300,000 to the "penitentiary ring" which
had been unable to make a similar appropriation cover the
previous biennium and which was accused of an administra-
tion which had resulted in a complete breakdown of prison
discipline at the penitentiary; 32 a lake front act providing
for the transfer of the submerged lands outside the tracks of
the Illinois Central railroad to that company instead, as origi-
nally proposed, of releasing it to the city of Chicago, together
with the lake front inside the tracks; and railroad legislation,
including an act regulating railroad rates and an act which
assigned a portion of the state taxes to assist in paying the
remaining unpaid railroad debts of counties and municipal cor-
porations. Two of the three last mentioned laws were enacted
over the veto of Governor Palmer; in the case of rate regu-
30 Chicago Tribune, March 2, April 17, 1869; Carthage Republican, March
18, 1869; Ottawa Free Trader, April 24, 1869; Illinois State Register, Novem-
ber 15, 1869.
31 Ibid., April 16, July 29, 1869; Cairo Evening Bulletin, March i, 1869;
Illinois State Journal, April 17, 1869; Joliet Signal, April 27, 1869; see also
Debel, The Veto Power of the Governor of Illinois, 79.
32 Illinois State Register, February 3, July 2, August 4, September 16, 1869;
Joliet Signal, January n, March 16, 1869.
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 417
lation, however, a veto pointed the way to modifications which
met with his formal approval. 33
While the legislature was at its work, news arrived of the
passage of the fifteenth amendment giving the Negro the right
to vote. This the assembly promptly ratified, although there
was still a grave question as to whether Illinois was ready to
admit its own Negro citizens to the polls. The issue of Negro
suffrage had an interesting history in Illinois. The Chicago
Tribune was one of the first papers in the country to advocate
this principle; during the campaign of 1866 its editors, Senator
Yates and certain other republican leaders, had boldly struck
out for universal suffrage; but many in the party, especially
republicans in Egypt, recognized that "the deep-rooted preju-
dices of the white masses can only be banished by the slow
but certain process of time." 34 Democrats in the northern
counties, too, came to accept the justice of Negro suffrage.
The Joliet Signal, a democratic journal, declared itself ready
to extend the franchise "as soon as the negroes shall prove
that they are capable of a proper exercise of that privilege."
After the campaign of 1866 was over the Chicago Times
acknowledged Negro suffrage as so certain to be incorporated
into the fundamental law that it became good policy, if not a
public duty, to accept it without delay and in good faith.
Democrats at the center and opposite end of the state, how-
ever, did not believe that their party could secure a new lease
of life on that basis; and they soon silenced the Times by the
storm of protest. A year later, by making plans for the estab-
lishment of a new party organ at Chicago, the democratic antis
forced the Chicago Times to repudiate the heresy and chal-
33 Laws of 1869, p. 245-248, 309-312, 316-321; Palmer, Personal Recollec-
tions, 290-291.
34 Central Illinois Gazette, April 27, 1866; Canton Weekly Register, January
29, 1866; Cairo Democrat, October 20, 1866. "The prejudice against the negro
is not wholly overborne," declared Dr. C. H. Ray, who was not in favor of
imposing Negro suffrage on the south. " Say what we may, you and I share it;
and what is true of us is doubly true of others. Because we have a sense of
duty, a desire to be faithful to principles and a profound but not always active
belief in that much talked-of ' brotherhood of men'. Where we think on this
question, the masses give way to prejudice uncontrolled: and to dislike, I will
not say hate, a negro is just as natural as to distinguish black from white."
Ray to Trumbull, February 7, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts. So also Congress-
man Kuykendall of the Cairo district refused to follow his republican associates
on the Negro suffrage issue. Jonesboro Gazette, January 5, February 9, 1867.
4 i8 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
lenged the republicans to make Negro suffrage the issue for
the next presidential campaign ; the republican national conven-
tion, however, failed to put the issue squarely, though it con-
tinued an important feature of party politics. In the general
assembly of 1869, as previously in 1867, considerable pressure
was exerted in favor of an amendment to strike from the state
constitution all discriminations against color and race in the
matter of political privileges. When the fifteenth amendment,
however, was given the approval of the state, the necessity
of further action was eliminated, although democrats dared
their opponents to strike the word "white" out of the new
state constitution. 35
Another act of the assembly of 1869 was to make the
formal arrangement for the constitutional convention ordered
by the people in the election of 1868. The election of delegates
was set for the first Tuesday in November, and the convention
was to assemble on the second Monday of the following
month. This interjected a new atmosphere into the local elec-
tions of that year; inasmuch as none of the questions at
issue, except the Negro suffrage matter, were political in char-
acter, the attempt was made to select capable representatives
regardless of party affiliations. As a result the convention was
made up almost equally of democrats and republicans, with a
few republicans who ran as " people's candidates " holding
the balance. 36 The party line, however, was also a sectional
line, as the democrats were present in force only from Egypt,
and the republicans from the northern half of the state.
The disintegration of the republican party, which bespoke
the need for internal reorganization, found a wide range of
expression. In the city and county elections of northern Illinois
a certain puritanical reform element launched a political tem-
35 Illinois State Register, November 13, 17, 1866, October 21, 1869; Chicago
Tribune, November 13, 1866, January 10, 30, 1868; Joliet Signal, May 8, Decem-
ber 4; Cairo Democrat, November 14, 15, 16, 1866; Carthage Republican,
November 15, 1866.
36 The Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1869, rejoiced in the smallness of
the republican majority, which it then estimated at ten: "This is as much as any
party ought to have in any deliberative assembly. It is both safer and more
reliable than a majority of twenty." It is quite evident that Joseph MedilFs
scheme of minority representation grew out of his disgust with the antics of
the large republican majority in the sessions of 1867 and 1869. Cf. ibid.,
November 13, 1869.
SPOILS AND THE SPOILERS 419
perance movement which placed separate candidates in the
field; the democrats welcomed this movement as a division of
the majority. In La Salle county a labor ticket was nominated
on the platform of the National Labor Union; in Chicago, in
Will county, and in Kane county, democratic and republican
reformers united on "people's" or "citizens'" tickets to de-
feat the " ring tickets " put up by the local republican machines.
All the republican newspapers in Chicago, except the Post,
refused to support the regular party ticket; the Chicago Times,
the leading organ of the democracy for the northwest, indorsed
the "citizens'" candidates. The Kane county independent
movement proved abortive, but victory was registered against
"clique domination" in Will county, and in Cook county a
stinging rebuke was administered to the corrupt gangsters who
had for five or six years controlled the county offices and emolu-
ments. The "barnacles," claimed the reformers, were being
swept off the ship of state. Elsewhere, notably in Perry county,
the result of dissension in the republican ranks had been either
democratic gains or democratic victories. 37
The republican party of 1870 had lost the spirituality that
had characterized it in its early battles for freedom as a minor-
ity party. In that day the spoilsman had sought satisfaction for
his ambitions in the ranks of the "unterrified" democracy, but
the revolution of 1860 with its spoils of victory had drawn the
professional politician into the republican ranks. After a
decade of power the republican party was in need of much
the same purification as that through which the democratic
party had passed in the lean days of its failures during the
Civil War.
37 Rockford Gazette, February 4, July 15, 22, September 23, October 7, 21,
1869; Ottawa Free Trader, September 4, 1869; Ottawa Weekly Republican,
September 30, October 14, 1869; Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1869; The Nation,
9:282; Illinois State Register, November 4, 1869; Belleville Democrat, Novem-
ber ii, 1869.
XX. RELIGION, MORALITY, AND EDUCATION,
1860-1870
IN SPITE of the lofty idealism of many northerners, who
had welcomed the crusade against slavery, it cannot be
denied that war conditions stimulated a moral degeneration
sufficiently serious to command the attention of thoughtful
observers. Later, when the champions of morality had
secured perspective for adequate evaluation of the problem,
they girded their loins for combat with the forces of darkness.
During the war normal habits of living were undermined
by the incidents of poverty growing out of prevailing high
prices and by the consequences of withdrawing a large percent-
age of the male population. Newspapers of every political
stripe chronicled with horror the growing prevalence of licen-
tiousness and crime. Besides the metropolitan vices of Chi-
cago, crime seemed to find a safe refuge in cities like Spring-
field and Cairo, which had large military establishments. Row-
diness and bloody brawls among the soldiers grew at times into
organized attacks upon persons and property. Street walks
and corners were so infested by gay and flashing damsels,
brazen-faced courtesans and their parasites, that the news-
papers set up a howl of protest; the Chicago Tribune stated
that there were known to be at least two thousand lewd women
in that city. Cairo struggled helplessly with the problem, its
citizens complaining that there was not another city in the
country where the social evil was carried to such fearful and
disgusting lengths. In 1865 matters came to a climax when
the soldiers were being mustered out at Springfield. The city
was so " overrun with blacklegs, burglars, garroters and har-
lots, (male and female) who have congregated to rob the sol-
diers . . "....'.' of their hard earned wages," 1 that Gen-
1 Chicago Tribune, July 22, 24, 1865, January 9, 1866; Cairo Democrat,
February 28, March 5, 1864, November 12, 22, 1865; Cairo Evening Bulletin,
420
RELIGION AND EDUCATION 421
eral John Cook detailed two additional companies to act as
a provost guard whereupon the criminal business underwent a
decided decline.
In attempting to explain this wave of crime, some held
that there was no alarming increase crime had merely con-
centrated in urban centers and was given the light of publicity
by a press that had become microscopic; yet it was notably true
that the state penitentiary at Joliet was unable to furnish satis-
factory accommodations for the increasing number of convicts.
To others the fact that in 1867 capital punishment was vir-
tually abolished by the legislature explained the increase of
crime; they therefore demanded the restoration of the death
penalty. Still others proclaimed the wave as the legitimate and
inevitable consequences of war; said the Rockford Register, a
republican paper: "The restraints imposed upon evil pro-
pensities by society and by law, before the war, have been
greatly weakened by the bloody scenes and lawlessness of the
past four years." 2
Coincident with the numerous reports of a general increase
of drunkenness, a reviving temperance movement gathered
strength, while the news of extensive frauds by Illinois whisky
distillers who had evaded payment of a half million dollars
of revenue tax played into the hands of reformers. But tem-
perance had' had its day in the fifties, and politicians were no
longer amenable to the political pressure of the temperance
forces. William H. Underwood, of Belleville, confessed in
confidence to Senator Trumbull: "We have too many mere
partizan drunkards and stump speakers now in office." 3
The public man of the Civil War era must not be judged
by the' standards of today; indeed, it was only then that the
traditional atmosphere, in which all important transactions
were aided by alcoholic lubricants, was just beginning to pass
away. To be sure, Lincoln could win the unqualified praise
March 30, May 28, 1869; Illinois State Register, April 16, 1862, February 10,
1864; Chicago Times, January 6, June 27, 1864; Illinois State Journal, July
25, 1865.
2 Rockford Register, August 12, 1865; Chicago Times, January 21, 1864;
Illinois State Register, February 24, 1864; Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1865,
November 23, 1866; Illinois State Journal, March 14, 28, 1866, August 8, 1867;
Aurora Beacon, December 13, 1866.
3 W. H. Underwood to Trumbull, January 15, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts.
422 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
of a stern old puritan who proclaimed that "In old Abe is
Combined the eloquence of an orator the fancy of a poet the
Acuteness of a Schoolman the Profoundness of a Philosopher
and the piety of a Saint for I am told that he neither drinks
intoxicating drinks nor uses that nasty filthy dirty disgusting
nauseating Poisonous weed called Tobbacco." 4 Yet because
he was tolerant of the habits of his fellows he "ran smoothly
in society complaining of no immorality, no intemperance
no vice no tobacco-chewing." 5 But some of the ablest rep-
resentatives of the state at the Springfield capitol, in the halls
of congress, and on the battlefields of the Civil War were
given to overindulgence in intoxicating drinks. In 1868, when
the resignation of a prominent United States senator, probably
the most loved of all the public men of the day, was demanded
by a large portion of his party's press on account of his intem-
perate use of liquor, he penned a solemn statement to the
people of Illinois in which he frankly confessed the weakness
that had brought "discredit upon my State and myself.
. . . During twenty seven years of political service
with the exception of ten of those years when I totally abstained
I have often yielded to temptation, and as often have suf-
fered the pangs of unutterable remorse;" 6 the people of the
state bade him a hearty Godspeed in his plans to reform.
In the first few months of the war many pious observers
thought that it had worked out a purification that the fear
and cowardice of those who had stood by as silent witnesses to
the martyrdom of the antislavery prophets had been stripped
off and forever discarded. With the outbreak of civil strife
it required little nerve to discourse on the moral evils of slavery
and to set up a lusty shout for the union ; the clergy, even those
who had previously shrunk from the propositions of the abo-
litionist, now demanded the most up-standing loyalty of their
fellows and of their congregations. Some had the courage
of their convictions and, laying aside their frocks, rushed into
the fray; a notable case was that of Reverend Jesse H. Moore,
4 W. K. Kendall to Trumbull, January 7, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts. ^
5 Herndon to Joseph Gillespie, February 20, 1866, Gillespie manuscripts.
He continued: "Lincoln had no appetites, but woman must get out of his way."
6 Chicago Tribune, March 30, 1868; Rockford Gazette, April 2, 9, 30, 1868;
Aurora Beacon, April 30, 1868.
RELIGION AND EDUCATION 423
a Methodist pastor at Jacksonville, who raised the One hun-
dred and fifteenth regiment in 1862 and graced his colonelcy
so well that he was mustered* out as a brevet brigadier general.
Most clergymen, however, preferred to wage battle from the
pulpit from which there now emanated a veritable barrage
against the rebel and the copperhead. Loyalty resolutions were
pressed upon all church conferences and conventions to such
effect that they carried with practically no opposition. The
Central Illinois Methodist Conference in September, 1862,
adopted a resolution, drafted by Dr. Richard Haney, chaplain
of the Sixth Illinois volunteers, requesting President Lincoln
to free the Negroes from slavery; this resolution is claimed
to be the first ecclesiastical action of the kind to reach the
president. 7
Although the Methodist conferences displayed unwavering
loyalty even suspending or expelling the few members who
openly condemned Lincoln's emancipation policy yet many
felt politics to be too sordid a game to be mixed with true
religion. The Illinois conference in session at Lima on Sep-
tember 2, 1863, adopted resolutions declaring affairs of state
out of order in that conference, while at Carthage efforts were
made to establish an independent Methodist church, where
politics would not be tolerated in the pulpit; a call was even
issued for a meeting of seceders from " abolition synagogues "
who favored the organization of a society for Christian com-
munion free from political partisanship. The impetus of this
feeling carried into existence a new organization called the
"Christian Union" which within a year was able to send out
a call to nearly twenty ministers to assemble in convention at
Peoria. 8
The democrats espoused and hotly defended the ministerial
minority which abstained from politics and denounced the
" degeneracy of the church " which allowed " political parsons "
7 Jacksonville Journal, May 12, 1866; Adjutant General, Report, 1861-1866,
1:179. Haney had given thirty years of service to the ministry in Illinois and
in September, 1866, preached the centennary sermon of American Methodism
at Lexington. Ryan, "Antislavery Struggle in Illinois as it Affected the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church," Illinois State Historical Society, Transactions, 1913, p. 75.
8 Chicago Times, October 13, 1863, January 22, 1864; Carthage Repub-
lican, November 12, 1863; Illinois State Register, July 27, 1864; Ottawa Free
Trader, November 26, 1864; Canton Weekly Register, December 19, 1864.
4 2 4 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
to outlaw "ministers who have conscientious scruples against
preaching niggerism in the pulpit." 9 "It looks very much
to an outsider," said the State Register, October n, 1863,
" as if the members of the conference, who approved of the
desecration of the church in the manner stated, have their
minds more upon the negro and politics, than upon religion and
the salvation of souls." " Descending to the low squabbles
of pot-house demagogues," commented the St. Louis Repub-
lican, "they have willfully placed themselves on the level
with those who make politics their trade, or with those
miserable creatures, found in some communities, who take
delight in stirring up contentions among their neighbors." 10
Whether this was spiritual degeneracy or the finest religious
ecstacy, at any rate all denominations greeted the return of
peace with an outpouring of old-time religion. Early in Janu-
ary and February, 1866, the meetings, followed by wholesale
conversions, began and continued throughout the year. Never
since the great revivals of 1858 had so many come to inquire,
" what must we do to be saved? " At Springfield, which became
the center of this great awakening with meetings at the state
capitol and noon prayer meetings in the ward schoolhouses,
the clergy, in October, called upon the people of the state to
join in a five days prayer meeting to invoke " an outpouring of
the Holy spirit upon the churches and people throughout the
State." 11 The result was a great gathering of Christians which
alroused tremendous enthusiasm. All denominations made
great gains during this bonanza year.
In contrast to the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists,
and Christians, who quietly persisted along old lines of prog-
ress, was the internal strife that beset the other large denomi-
nations. Efforts were made to calm the conflicting forces tear-
9 Chicago Times, October 12, 21, 1863; Belleville Democrat, October 17,
November 7, 1863.
10 Cairo Democrat, October 22, 1863. More complaint was made in 1866
when the Illinois Methodist conference bitterly arraigned President Johnson
on political grounds. Belleville Democrat, October 13, 1866; Ottawa Weekly
Republican, October 18, 1866; Chicago Tribune, October 31, 1866.
11 This meeting had been called after consultation with representatives
of all evangelical denominations throughout the state. Illinois State Register,
April u, 14, 1866; Chicago Evening Journal, May 10, 1866; Joliet Signal,
October 30, 1866; Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1866; Ottawa Weekly
Republican, November 15, 1866.
RELIGION AND EDUCATION 425
ing at the vitals of Presbyterianism. In 1865 even the old
school synod for northern Illinois ratified the action of the
General Assembly in refusing fellowship with unrepentant
clergymen and laymen who had participated in the rebellion
and who considered slavery a divine institution. 12 The next
year Cyrus H. McCormick, an influential layman, began his
labors to bring about a reunion of the northern and southern
wings; the most definite response came from a southern Illinois
Presbyterian convention at Centralia early in 1868, attended by
representatives of the old school, new school, and the united
and reformed branches, which approved of the so-called " Phil-
adelphia basis" of union. In 1869 the question of reuniting
the "new" and "old school" Presbyterians, after a division
of thirty years, was decided affirmatively by the presby-
teries. 13
In the meantime the Episcopal diocese of Illinois was
torn by the struggle between the high churchmen led by the
rigid disciplinarian, Bishop Whitehouse, and the low church
party which objected both to extremes of ritualism and to the
introduction of cathedral worship. A climax was reached
when the Reverend Charles E. Cheney of Chicago, a spokes-
man of the liberal forces, was severely disciplined before the
bishop's court, although the case was later reviewed in Cheney's
favor in a civil court. Out of this controversy grew the organi-
zation of the Reformed Episcopal Church under the leader-
ship of Associate Bishop David Cummins of Kentucky, first
known to Chicagoans through an anti-ritualistic sermon which
he delivered during the controversy. 14
The Catholics made progress in spite of the contentions
that developed under the later years of Bishop Duggan's
administration. Over one-half of the population of Chicago
was Catholic; yet this included almost entirely persons of
foreign birth or parentage since the increase was largely the
result of immigration. One of the problems of the church
was to Americanize the congregations; the Irish, however,
12 Galena Gazette, October 24, clipped in Chicago Tribune, October 27, 1865.
13 Chicago Evening Journal, May 16, 1866; Jacksonville Journal, March
2, 1868 ; Ottawa Free Trader, November 13, 1869.
14 Chicago Tribune, July 15, 22, 29, August 4, 1869; Belleville Advocate,
June 18, 1869; Andreas, History of Chicago, 2:412-415; 3:786-789.
426 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
often objected to the assignment of a priest who was not
himself an Irishman.
The Catholics labored not only under the difficulty of
internal heterogeneity but also of external criticism. In 1867
considerable anti-Catholic feeling developed in Illinois when
the Reverend J. G. White of Jacksonville, a fearless cham-
pion of protestantism, went about the state lecturing on " Ro-
manism." In Quincy he was disturbed at his first lecture and
actually prevented by a hostile mob from delivering the rest
of his series there. Mayor Pitman, a democrat, was appealed
to for protection but he instructed the city marshal to prevent
the lecture ; Governor Oglesby, however, declared that the right
of free speech should be maintained. White as well as several
other "radical" protestant ministers continued to give his
lectures in the following years with the result that disturb-
ances took place at Bloomington in 1868 and Springfield in
i869. 15
In general, however, the spirit of toleration was abroad
When colonies of Mormons appeared in various parts of
northern Illinois they were allowed to carry on their affairs
without interference; hundreds of Mormons returned to the
region of Nauvoo ; and Joseph Smith, the younger, passed the
closing years of his life as the Illinois leader at Piano, Kendall
county. The liberal sects, like the Unitarians and Universal-
ists, grew in strength and went their way unchallenged. Citi-
zens of Du Quoin took pride in the fact that one of the local
churches opened its doors to an " infidel lecturer," for a series
of ten lectures; and among the advantages of their city
they held none so priceless as the " enlarged views, or liber-
ality of our citizens It makes little difference
here whether a man is Mohammedan, Christian or a Jew;
Democrat Conservative, moderate or radical Republican, so
long as he goes upon his own way." 16 Into the liberal atmos-
phere of such a state Lincoln's views on religion could be
injected without much of a shock. Early in 1870 at a time
when there was considerable current discussion as to Lin-
15 Jacksonville Journal, April 26, 1867; Quincy Whig, April 24, 1867; Chi-
cago Tribune, April 27, 1867, July 28, 1868, March 29, 1869; Canton Weekly
Register, April 3, 1868; Ottawa Weekly Republican, August 26, 1869.
16 J)u Quoin Tribune, March 31, 1870.
RELIGION AND EDUCATION 427
coin's views, W. H. Herndon, his law partner, issued a lengthy
newspaper statement on the matter. Lincoln he declared
"did not believe in a special creation, .... he did not
believe that the Bible was a special revelation from God,
. . . he did not believe in miracles, .... he did
not believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, as the
Christian world contends." Lincoln was, he explained, a theist
living in his moments of melancholy and gloom " on the bor-
derland between theism and atheism." " I maintain that Mr.
Lincoln was a deeply religious man at all times and places, in
spite of his transient doubts," he declared. The fact that
few were impressed with any incompatibility in the statement
is a striking instance of growing tolerance.
One of the most significant moral educational issues of the
late sixties was the question of woman's rights, which the
Civil War revived in a more practical form than had ever
appeared in Illinois one in which forward-looking preachers
were glad to cooperate with such assailants of revealed religion
as Robert Ingersoll. At the outbreak of war the abstract
question was abandoned while the "gentler sex" turned its
energies into constructive work in the cause of the union;
and after years of hard toil in the fields, in shops, in hospitals,
and in relief work, the women felt that they had indeed earned
a claim to consideration in the civil life of the state equal to
that of the liberated Negro. Pioneer women editors, preach-
ers, and physicians, emissaries from the east, appeared to
demonstrate the ability of women to compete with the men
for their traditional monopolies. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore,
the author and reformer, was the active agent in the editing
of her husband's New Covenant, the Universalist organ;
she travelled to the hospitals and camps of the Missis-
sippi valley as representative of the United States Sanitary
Commission and in many ways prepared for her career as a
woman's suffrage lecturer. Meantime Mrs. Myra Bradwell,
as editor of the Chicago Legal News, and Mrs. Mary L.
Walker, of the Sorosis and later the Agitator, became active
propagandists for the cause of equal rights.
The new issue first gained recognition in 1867 and 1869
when state laws were enacted protecting married women in
428 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
their property rights. Then, in spite of considerable objec-
tion, the trustees of the Illinois Industrial University on March
8, 1870, finally voted to permit the registration of women stu-
dents. In February, 1870, after Governor Palmer, on account
of legal obstacles, rejected the application of Mrs. Bradwell
to be appointed a notary public, Mrs. Amelia Hobbs, probably
the first woman chosen to hold office in Illinois, was elected a
justice of the peace in Jersey county. 17
It was commonly believed, however, that the caucus was not
a fitting field for woman's endeavors, though women as well
as men were ready to ask whether there was any ground in
reason or justice why they should not vote. 18 In November,
1867, Susan B. Anthony, in coming to Illinois for a series
of lectures which aroused wide interest, initiated an active
suffrage propaganda that was aided in later years by Mary A.
Livermore, Anna Dickinson, and other pioneers of the move-
ment. The Illinois advocates of suffrage included Kate M.
Doggett, Dr. Mary J. Safford, and Mrs. C. T. F. Stringer,
and among the men, Judge C. B. Waite, Judge James B. Brad-
well, Robert Ingersoll, as well as a number of clergymen. Soon
woman suffrage associations were founded in various parts
of the state; Judge Bradwell became chairman of the Illinois
Woman Suffrage Association which conducted an active cam-
paign to secure the elective franchise for women in the next
constitutional convention. Strong local organizations were
formed in all the large cities in the early months of 1870;
and a state suffrage convention at Springfield, February 8-9,
addressed an appeal to the constitutional convention to deal " as
justly and fairly with the women of the State as ....
by the negroes of the State." 19 Yet although the republicans
toyed with the suffrage question, the only clear-cut indorsement
received from any political group was from the Irish republican
national convention at Chicago in July, i869. 20 This, how-
ever, had little significance, and in the convention the woman
17 Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1869; Champaign County Union and
Gazette, February 23, 1870.
18 E. C. Lamed to Trumbull, March 10, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts.
19 Illinois State Register, February 8, 10, 1870; Illinois State Journal, Febru-
ary 10, 1870.
20 Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1869.
RELIGION AND EDUCATION 429
suffrage movement was consigned to the realm of futile
propaganda.
More formal education was making progress upon the
foundations laid in the fifties. The opportunity for education
was eagerly embraced, and school attendance nearly doubled in
the decade; some there were who would completely democra-
tize the school system on the principle of compulsory educa-
tion. Though this proposal was in advance of the times, in
general champions of education now found their labors as easy
as they had been difficult a dozen years before; it was a
simple matter to secure from the constitutional convention of
1862 a satisfactory article on education and suggestions by
Superintendent of Public Instruction Newton Bateman were
placed before the convention of 1870 with every probability
of a fair and favorable consideration. 21
The more important gains came in securing physical con-
ditions favorable to a greater degree of educational efficiency.
The little red schoolhouse had had its day; and, with a steady
reduction in the number of skeptics, the "big schoolhouse"
policy adopted in Chicago several years before became general
throughout the cities of the state. The increase of facilities,
however, could scarcely keep pace with the new demand. Chi-
cago in one year expended $341,145 for providing additional
school accommodations, yet the enrollment increased so that
" we are relatively worse off now than we were a year ago " 22
even though in order to furnish educational opportunities to
those unable to attend day sessions, several free night schools
were inaugurated. In 1869 the Chicago board of education
went to the legislature to secure authorization for a loan of
$850,000 to build additional schoolhouses ; and when, to quiet
the complaint of extravagance it reduced its request to $500,-
ooo it was with the proviso that no schoolhouse costing
more than fifteen thousand dollars should be built until
all the children in the city should be provided with school
accommodations.
Jacksonville, with very generous provision for the educa-
21 Journal of the Constitutional Convention, 1862, p. 766, 1093; Chicago
Tribune, July 30, 1867.
22 Ibid., October 20, 1865, April 27, 1868, January 14, 18, 1869.
430 THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
tional interests of the city, continued to live up to its reputation
as the "Athens of the west," while Alton public schools
attained an excellency that rendered private schools unprofit-
able. 23 Cairo discarded the "wretched rookery" worth only
$400, which had been made to provide accommodation for
eighty pupils ; and within three years by substituting two splen-
did three-story brick structures and a spacious one-story frame
building, caring for the educational needs of eight hundred
children, the young city felt entitled to boast of one of the best
public school systems in the northwest. 24 Belleville, although
providing efficient instruction, could not display a singl
