Abraham Lincoln: a History Volume I Part 4

"The inclosed map gives the courses and distances as required by law.

Michael Killion, Hugh Armstrong, A. Lincoln."

(Indors.e.m.e.nt in pencil, also in Lincoln's handwriting:)

"A. Lincoln, 5 days at $3.00, $15.00. John A. Kelsoe, chain-bearer, for 5 days at 75 cents, $3.75. Robert Lloyd, at 75 cents, $3.75. Hugh Armstrong, for services as axeman, 5 days at 75 cents, $3.75. A.

Lincoln, for making plot and report, $2.50."

(On Map.) "Whole length of road, 26 miles and 70 chains. Scale, 2 inches to the mile."]

CHAPTER VII

LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE

The election of Mr. Lincoln to the Legislature may be said to have closed the pioneer portion of his life. He was done with the wild carelessness of the woods, with the jolly ruffianism of Clary's Grove, with the petty chaffering of grocery stores, with odd jobs for daily bread, with all the uncouth squalor of the frontier poverty. It was not that his pecuniary circ.u.mstances were materially improved. He was still, and for years continued to be, a very poor man, hara.s.sed by debts which he was always working to pay, and sometimes in distress for the means of decent subsistence. But from this time forward his a.s.sociations were with a better cla.s.s of men than he had ever known before, and a new feeling of self-respect must naturally have grown up in his mind from his constant intercourse with them-a feeling which extended to the minor morals of civilized life. A sophisticated reader may smile at the mention of anything like social ethics in Vandalia in 1834; but, compared with Gentryville and New Salem, the society which a.s.sembled in the winter at that little capital was polished and elegant. The State then contained nearly 250,000 inhabitants, and the members of the Legislature, elected purely on personal grounds, nominated by themselves or their neighbors without the intervention of party machinery, were necessarily the leading men, in one way or another, in their several districts. Among the colleagues of Lincoln at Vandalia were young men with destinies only less brilliant than his own. They were to become governors, senators, and judges; they were to organize the Whig party of Illinois, and afterwards the Republican; they were to lead brigades and divisions in two great wars. Among the first persons he met there-not in the Legislature proper, but in the lobby, where he was trying to appropriate an office then filled by Colonel John J. Hardin-was his future antagonist, Stephen A. Douglas. Neither seemed to have any presentiment of the future greatness of the other. Douglas thought little of the raw youth from the Sangamon timber, and Lincoln said the dwarfish Vermonter was "the least man he had ever seen." To all appearance, Vandalia was full of better men than either of them-clever lawyers, men of wit and standing, some of them the sons of provident early settlers, but more who had come from older States to seek their fortunes in these fresh fields.

During his first session Lincoln occupied no especially conspicuous position. He held his own respectably among the best. One of his colleagues tells us he was not distinguished by any external eccentricity; that he wore, according to the custom of the time, a decent suit of blue jeans; that he was known simply as a rather quiet young man, good-natured and sensible. Before the session ended he had made the acquaintance of most of the members, and had evidently come to be looked upon as possessing more than ordinary capacity. His unusual common-sense began to be recognized. His name does not often appear in the records of the year. He introduced a resolution in favor of securing to the State a part of the proceeds of the sales of public lands within its limits; he took part in the organization of the ephemeral "White" party, which was designed to unite all the anti- Jackson elements under the leaders.h.i.+p of Hugh L. White, of Tennessee; he voted with the minority in favor of Young against Robinson for senator, and with the majority that pa.s.sed the Bank and Ca.n.a.l bills, which were received with great enthusiasm throughout Illinois, and which were only the precursors of those gigantic and ill-advised schemes that came to maturity two years later, and inflicted incalculable injury upon the State.

Lincoln returned to New Salem, after this winter's experience of men and things at the little capital, much firmer on his feet than ever before. He had had the opportunity of measuring himself with the leading men of the community, and had found no difficulty whatever in keeping pace with them. He continued his studies of the law and surveying together, and became quite indispensable in the latter capacity-so much so that General Neale, announcing in September, 1835, the names of the deputy surveyors of Sangarnon County, placed the name of Lincoln before that of his old master in the science, John Calhoun. He returned to the Legislature in the winter of 1835-6, and one of the first important incidents of the session was the election of a senator to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Elias Kent Kane. There was no lack of candidates. A journal of the time says: "This intelligence reached Vandalia on the evening of the 26th of December, and in the morning nine candidates appeared in that place, and it was antic.i.p.ated that a number more would soon be in, among them 'the lion of the North,' who, it is thought, will claim the office by preemption." [Footnote: "Sangamo Journal," January 2.] It is not known who was the roaring celebrity here referred to, but the successful candidate was General William L. D. Ewing, who was elected by a majority of one vote. Lincoln and the other Whigs voted for him, not because he was a "White" man, as they frankly stated, but because "he had been proscribed by the Van Buren party." Mr. Semple, the candidate for the regular Democratic caucus, was beaten simply on account of his political orthodoxy.

A minority is always strongly in favor of independent action and bitterly opposed to caucuses, and therefore we need not be surprised at finding Mr. Lincoln, a few days later in the session, joining in hearty denunciation of the convention system, which had already become popular in the East, and which General Jackson was then urging upon his faithful followers. The missionaries of this new system in Illinois were Stephen A. Douglas, recently from Vermont, the s.h.i.+fty young lawyer from Morgan County, who had just succeeded in having himself made circuit attorney in place of Colonel Hardin, and a man who was then regarded in Vandalia as a far more important and dangerous person than Douglas, Ebenezer Peck, of Chicago. Peck was looked upon with distrust and suspicion for several reasons, all of which seemed valid to the rural legislators a.s.sembled there. He came from Canada, where he had been a member of the provincial parliament; it was therefore imagined that he was permeated with secret hostility to republican inst.i.tutions; his garb, his furs, were of the fas.h.i.+on of Quebec; and he pa.s.sed his time indoctrinating the Jackson men with the theory and practice of party organization, teachings which they eagerly absorbed, and which seemed sinister and ominous to the Whigs. He was showing them, in fact, the way in which elections were to be won; and though the Whigs denounced his system as subversive of individual freedom and private judgment, it was not long before they were also forced to adopt it, or be left alone with their virtue. The organization of political parties in Illinois really takes its rise from this time, and in great measure from the work of Mr. Peck with the Vandalia Legislature. There was no man more dreaded and disliked than he was by the stalwart young Whigs against whom he was organizing that solid and disciplined opposition. But a quarter of a century brings wonderful changes. Twenty-five years later Mr. Peck stood shoulder to shoulder with these very men who then reviled him as a Canadian emissary of tyranny and corruption,-with S. T. Logan, 0. H. Browning, and J. K. Dubois,-organizing a new party for victory under the name of Abraham Lincoln.

[Ill.u.s.tration: O. H. Browning.]

The Legislature adjourned on the 18th of January, having made a beginning, it is true, in the work of improving the State by statute, though its modest work, incorporating ca.n.a.l and bridge companies and providing for public roads, bore no relation to the ambitious essays of its successor. Among the bills pa.s.sed at this session was an Apportionment act, by which Sangamon County became ent.i.tled to seven representatives and two senators, and early in the spring eight "White" statesmen of the county were ready for the field-the ninth, Mr. Herndon, holding over as State Senator. It seems singular to us of a later day that just eight prominent men, on a side, should have offered themselves for these places, without the intervention of any primary meetings. Such a thing, if we mistake not, was never known again in Illinois. The convention system was afterwards seen to be an absolute necessity to prevent the disorganization of parties through the restless vanity of obscure and insubordinate aspirants. But the eight who "took the stump" in Sangamon in the summer of 1836 were supported as loyally and as energetically as if they had been nominated with all the solemnity of modern days. They became famous in the history of the State, partly for their stature and partly for their influence in legislation. They were called, with Herndon, the "Long Nine;" their average height was over six feet, and their aggregate alt.i.tude was said to be fifty-five feet. Their names were Abraham Lincoln, John Dawson, Dan Stone, Ninian W. Edwards, William F. Elkin, R. L. Wilson, and Andrew McCormick, candidates for the House of Representatives, and Job Fletcher for the Senate, of Illinois.

Mr. Lincoln began his canva.s.s with the following circular:

NEW SALEM/June 13, 1836.

To the Editor of the "Journal."

In your paper of last Sat.u.r.day I see a communication over the signature "Many Voters" in which the candidates who are announced in the "Journal" are called upon to "show their hands." Agreed. Here's mine.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the Government who a.s.sist in bearing its burdens. Consequently I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my const.i.tuents, as well those that oppose as those that support me.

While acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is, and upon all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands to the several States, to enable our State, in common with others, to dig ca.n.a.ls and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying interest on it.

If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for President. [Footnote: This phrase seems to have been adopted as a formula by the anti-Jackson party. The "cards" of several candidates contain it.]

Very respectfully, A. LINCOLN.

It would be hard to imagine a more audacious and unqualified declaration of principles and intentions. But it was the fas.h.i.+on of the hour to promise exact obedience to the will of the people, and the two practical questions touched by this circular were the only ones then much talked about. The question of suffrage for aliens was a living problem in the State, and Mr. Lincoln naturally took liberal ground on it; and he was also in favor of getting from the sale of public lands a portion of the money he was ready to vote for internal improvements. This was good Whig doctrine at that time, and the young politician did not fancy he could go wrong in following in such a matter the lead of his idol, Henry Clay.

He made an active canva.s.s, and spoke frequently during the summer. He must have made some part of the campaign on foot, for we find in the county paper an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a horse which had strayed or been stolen from him while on a visit to Springfield. It was not an imposing animal, to judge from the description; it was "plainly marked with harness," and was "believed to have lost some of his shoes"; but it was a large horse, as suited a cavalier of such stature, and "trotted and paced" in a serviceable manner. In July a rather remarkable discussion took place at the county-seat, in which many of the leading men on both sides took part. Ninian Edwards, son of the late Governor, is said to have opened the debate with much effect. Mr. Early, who followed him, was so roused by his energetic attack that he felt his only resource was a flat contradiction, which in those days meant mischief. In the midst of great and increasing excitement Dan Stone and John Calhoun made speeches which did not tend to pour oil on the waters of contention, and then came Mr. Lincoln's turn. An article in the "Journal" states that he seemed embarra.s.sed in his opening, for this was the most important contest in which he had ever been engaged. But he soon felt the easy mastery of his powers come back to him, and he finally made what was universally regarded as the strongest speech of the day. One of his colleagues says that on this occasion he used in his excitement for the first time that singularly effective clear tenor tone of voice which afterwards became so widely known in the political battles of the West. The canva.s.s was an energetic one throughout, and excited more interest, in the district than even the presidential election, which occurred some months later. Mr. Lincoln was elected at the head of the poll by a majority greatly in excess of the average majority of his friends, which shows conclusively how his influence and popularity had increased. The Whigs in this election effected a revolution in the politics of the county. By force of their ability and standing they had before managed to divide the suffrages of the people, even while they were unquestionably in the minority; but this year they completely defeated their opponents and gained that control of the county which they never lost as long as the party endured.

If Mr. Lincoln had no other claims to be remembered than his services in the Legislature of 1836-7, there would be little to say in his favor. Its history is one of disaster to the State. Its legislation was almost wholly unwise and hurtful. The most we can say for Mr. Lincoln is that he obeyed the will of his const.i.tuents, as he promised to do, and labored with singular skill and ability to accomplish the objects desired by the people who gave him their votes. The especial work intrusted to him was the subdivision of the county, and the project for the removal of the capital of the State to Springfield. [Footnote: "Lincoln was at the head of the project to remove the seat of government to Springfield; it was entirely intrusted to him to manage. The members were all elected on one ticket, but they all looked to Lincoln as the head" STEPHEN T, LOGAN.] In both of these he was successful. In the account of errors and follies committed by the Legislature to the lasting injury of the State, he is ent.i.tled to no praise or blame beyond the rest. He shared in that sanguine epidemic of financial and industrial quackery which devastated the entire community, and voted with the best men of the country in favor of schemes which appeared then like a promise of an immediate millennium, and seem now like midsummer madness.

[Sidenote: Ford, p. 102.]

[Footnote: Reynolds, "Life and Times."]

He entered political life in one of those eras of delusive prosperity which so often precede great financial convulsions. The population of the State was increasing at the enormous rate of two hundred percent in ten years. It had extended northward along the lines of the wooded valleys of creeks and rivers in the center to Peoria; on the west by the banks of the Mississippi to Galena; on the east with wide intervals of wilderness to Chicago. The edge of the timber was everywhere pretty well occupied, though the immigrants from the forest States of Kentucky and Tennessee had as yet avoided the prairies. The rich soil and equable climate were now attracting an excellent cla.s.s of settlers from the older States, and the long-neglected northern counties were receiving the attention they deserved. The war of Black Hawk had brought the country into notice; the utter defeat of his nation had given the guarantee of a permanent peace; the last lodges of the Pottawatomies had disappeared from the country in 1833. The money spent by the general Government during the war, and paid to the volunteers at its close, added to the common prosperity. There was a brisk trade in real estate, and there was even a beginning in Chicago of that pa.s.sion for speculation in town lots which afterwards became a frenzy.

It was too much to expect of the Illinois Legislature that it should understand that the best thing it could do to forward this prosperous tendency of things was to do nothing; for this is a lesson which has not yet been learned by any legislature in the world. For several years they had been tinkering, at first modestly and tentatively, at a scheme of internal improvements which should not cost too much money. In 1835 they began to grant charters for railroads, which remained in embryo, as the stock was never taken. Surveys for other railroads were also proposed, to cross the State in different directions; and the project of uniting Lake Michigan with the Illinois River by a ca.n.a.l was of too evident utility to be overlooked. In fact, the route had been surveyed, and estimates of cost made, companies incorporated, and all preliminaries completed many years before, though nothing further had been done, as no funds had been offered from any source. But at the special session of 1835 a law was pa.s.sed authorizing a loan of half a million dollars for this purpose; the loan was effected by Governor Duncan the following year, and in June, aboard of ca.n.a.l commissioners having been appointed, a beginning was actually made with pick and shovel.

[Sidenote: Ford, p. 181.]

A restless feeling of hazardous speculation seemed to be taking possession of the State. "It commenced," says Governor Ford, in his admirable chronicle, "at Chicago, and was the means of building up that place in a year or two from a village of a few houses to be a city of several thousand inhabitants. The story of the sudden fortunes made there excited at first wonder and amazement; next, a gambling spirit of adventure; and lastly, an all-absorbing desire for sudden and splendid wealth. Chicago had been for some time only one great town-market. The plots of towns for a hundred miles around were carried there to be disposed of at auction. The Eastern people had caught the mania. Every vessel coming west was loaded with them, their money and means, bound for Chicago, the great fairy-land of fortunes. But as enough did not come to satisfy the insatiable greediness of the Chicago sharpers and speculators, they frequently consigned their wares to Eastern markets. In fact, lands and town lots were the staple of the country, and were the only article of export." The contagion spread so rapidly, towns and cities were laid out so profusely, that it was a standing joke that before long there would be no land left in the State for farming purposes.

The future of the State for many years to come was thus discounted by the fervid imaginations of its inhabitants. "We have every requisite of a great empire," they said, "except enterprise and inhabitants," and they thought that a little enterprise would bring the inhabitants. Through the spring and summer of 1836 the talk of internal improvements grew more general and more clamorous. The candidates for office spoke about little else, and the only point of emulation among the parties was which should be the more reckless and grandiose in its promises. When the time arrived for the a.s.sembling of the Legislature, the members were not left to their own zeal and the recollection of their campaign pledges, but meetings and conventions were everywhere held to spur them up to the fulfillment of their mandate. The resolutions pa.s.sed by the princ.i.p.al body of delegates who came together in December directed the Legislature to vote a system of internal improvements "commensurate with the wants of the people," a phrase which is never lacking in the mouth of the charlatan or the demagogue.

[Sidenote: "Ford's History," p. 184.]

These demands were pressed upon a not reluctant Legislature. They addressed themselves at once to the work required of them, and soon devised, with reckless and unreasoning haste, a scheme of railroads covering the vast uninhabited prairies as with a gridiron. There was to be a rail-road from Galena to the mouth of the Ohio River; from Alton to Shawneetown; from Alton to Mount Carmel; from Alton to the eastern State boundary-by virtue of which lines Alton was to take the life of St. Louis without further notice; from Quincy to the Wabash River; from Bloomington to Pekin; from Peoria to Warsaw;-in all, 1350 miles of railway. Some of these terminal cities were not in existence except upon neatly designed surveyor's maps. The scheme provided also for the improvement of every stream in the State on which a child's s.h.i.+ngle-boat could sail; and to the end that all objections should be stifled on the part of those neighborhoods which had neither railroads nor rivers, a gift of two hundred thousand dollars was voted to them, and with this sop they were fain to be content and not trouble the general joy. To accomplish this stupendous scheme, the Legislature voted eight million dollars, to be raised by loan. Four millions were also voted to complete the ca.n.a.l. These sums, monstrous as they were, were still ridiculously inadequate to the purpose in view. But while the frenzy lasted there was no consideration of cost or of possibilities. These vast works were voted without estimates, without surveys, without any rational consideration of their necessity. The voice of reason seemed to be silent in the a.s.sembly; only the utterances of fervid prophecy found listeners. Governor Ford speaks of one orator who insisted, amid enthusiastic plaudits, that the State could well afford to borrow one hundred millions for internal improvements. The process of reasoning, or rather predicting, was easy and natural. The roads would raise the price of land; the State could enter large tracts and sell them at a profit; foreign capital would be invested in land, and could be heavily taxed to pay bonded interest; and the roads, as fast as they were built, could be operated at a great profit to pay for their own construction. The climax of the whole folly was reached by the provision of law directing that work should be begun at once at the termini of all the roads and the crossings of all rivers.

It is futile and disingenuous to attempt, as some have done, to fasten upon one or the other of the political parties of the State the responsibility of this bedlam legislation. The Governor and a majority of the Legislature were elected as Jackson Democrats, but the Whigs were as earnest in pa.s.sing these measures as their opponents; and after they were adopted, the superior wealth, education, and business capacity of the Whigs had their legitimate influence, and they filled the princ.i.p.al positions upon the boards and commissions which came into existence under the acts. The bills were pa.s.sed,-not without opposition, it is true, but by sufficient majorities,-and the news was received by the people of the State with the most extravagant demonstrations of delight. The villages were illuminated; bells were rung in the rare steeples of the churches; "fire-b.a.l.l.s,"-bundles of candle-wick soaked in turpentine,-were thrown by night all over the country. The day of payment was far away, and those who trusted the a.s.surances of the sanguine politicians thought that in some mysterious way the scheme would pay for itself.

Mr. Lincoln is continually found voting with his friends in favor of this legislation, and there is nothing to show that he saw any danger in it. He was a Whig, and as such in favor of internal improvements in general and a liberal construction of const.i.tutional law in such matters. As a boy, he had interested himself in the details of local improvements of rivers and roads, and he doubtless went with the current in Vandalia in favor of this enormous system. He took, however, no prominent part in the work by which these railroad bills were pa.s.sed. He considered himself as specially commissioned to procure the removal of the State capital from Vandalia to Springfield, and he applied all his energies to the accomplishment of this work. The enterprise was hedged round with difficulties; for although it was everywhere agreed, except at Vandalia, that the capital ought to be moved, every city in the State, and several which existed only on paper, demanded to be made the seat of government. The question had been submitted to a popular vote in 1834, and the result showed about as many cities desirous of opening their gates to the Legislature as claimed the honor of being the birthplace of Homer. Of these Springfield was only third in popular estimation, and it was evident that Mr. Lincoln had need of all his wits if he were to fulfill the trust confided to him. It is said by Governor Ford that the "Long Nine" were not averse to using the hopes and fears of other members in relation to their special railroads to gain their adherence to the Springfield programme, but this is by no means clear. We are rather inclined to trust the direct testimony of Jesse K. Dubois, that the success of the Sangamon County delegation in obtaining the capital was due to the adroit management of Mr. Lincoln-first in inducing all the rival claimants to unite in a vote to move the capital from Vandalia, and then in carrying a direct vote for Springfield through the joint convention by the a.s.sistance of the southern counties. His personal authority accomplished this in great part. Mr. Dubois says: "He made Webb and me vote for the removal, though we belonged to the southern end of the State. We defended our vote before our const.i.tuents by saying that necessity would ultimately force the seat of government to a central position. But in reality we gave the vote to Lincoln because we liked him, because we wanted to oblige our friend, and because we recognized him as our leader." To do this, they were obliged to quarrel with their most intimate a.s.sociates, who had bought a piece of waste land at the exact geographical center of the State and were striving to have the capital established there in the interest of their own pockets and territorial symmetry.

The bill was pa.s.sed only a short time before the Legislature adjourned, and the "Long Nine" came back to their const.i.tuents wearing their well-won laurels. They were complimented in the newspapers, at public meetings, and even at subscription dinners. We read of one at Springfield, at the "Rural Hotel," to which sixty guests sat down, where there were speeches by Browning, Lincoln, Douglas (who had resigned his seat in the Legislature to become Register of the Land Office at the new capital), S. T. Logan, Baker, and others, whose wit and wisdom were lost to history through the absence of reporters. Another dinner was given them at Athens a few weeks later. Among the toasts on these occasions were two which we may transcribe: "Abraham Lincoln: He has fulfilled the expectations of his friends, and disappointed the hopes of his enemies"; and "A. Lincoln: One of Nature's n.o.blemen."

CHAPTER VIII

THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST

[Sidenote: 1837.]

On the 3rd of March, the day before the Legislature adjourned, Mr. Lincoln caused to be entered upon its records a paper which excited but little interest at the time, but which will probably be remembered long after the good and evil actions of the Vandalia a.s.sembly have faded away from the minds of men. It was the authentic record of the beginning of a great and momentous career. The following protest was presented to the House, which was read and ordered to be spread on the journals, to wit:

Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having pa.s.sed both branches of the General a.s.sembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the pa.s.sage of the same.

They believe that the inst.i.tution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power under the Const.i.tution to interfere with the inst.i.tution of slavery in the different States.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the Const.i.tution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised, unless at the request of the people of the District.

The difference between these opinions and those contained in the above resolutions is their reason for entering this protest.

(Signed) DAN STONE, A. LINCOLN, Representatives from the county of Sangamon.

It may seem strange to those who shall read these pages that a protest so mild and cautious as this should ever have been considered either necessary or remarkable. We have gone so far away from the habits of thought and feeling prevalent at that time that it is difficult to appreciate such acts at their true value. But if we look a little carefully into the state of politics and public opinion in Illinois in the first half of this century, we shall see how much of inflexible conscience and reason there was in this simple protest.

[Sidenote: Edwards, "History of Illinois," p. 179.]

[Sidenote: Edwards, p. 180.]

The whole of the North-west territory had, it is true, been dedicated to freedom by the ordinance of 1787, but in spite of that famous prohibition, slavery existed in a modified form throughout that vast territory wherever there was any considerable population. An act legalizing a sort of slavery by indenture was pa.s.sed by the Indiana territorial Legislature in 1807, and this remained in force in the Illinois country after its separation. Another act providing for the hiring of slaves from Southern States was pa.s.sed in 1814, for the ostensible reason that "mills could not be successfully operated in the territory for want of laborers, and that the manufacture of salt could not be successfully carried on by white laborers." Yet, as an unconscious satire upon such pretenses, from time to time the most savage acts were pa.s.sed to prohibit the immigration of free negroes into the territory which was represented as pining for black labor. Those who held slaves under the French domination, and their heirs, continued to hold them and their descendants in servitude, after Illinois had become nominally a free territory and a free State, on the ground that their vested rights of property could not have been abrogated by the ordinance, and that under the rule of the civil law partus sequitur ventrem.

But this quasi-toleration of the inst.i.tution was not enough for the advocates of slavery. Soon after the adoption of the State Const.i.tution, which prohibited slavery "hereafter," it was evident that there was a strong under-current of desire for its introduction into the State. Some of the leading politicians, exaggerating the extent of this desire, imagined they saw in it a means of personal advancement, and began to agitate the question of a convention to amend the Const.i.tution. At that time there was a considerable emigration setting through the State from Kentucky and Tennessee to Missouri. Day by day the teams of the movers pa.s.sed through the Illinois settlements, and wherever they halted for rest and refreshment they would affect to deplore the short-sighted policy which, by prohibiting slavery, had prevented their settling in that beautiful country. When young bachelors came from Kentucky on trips of business or pleasure, they dazzled the eyes of the women and excited the envy of their male rivals with their black retainers. The early Illinoisans were perplexed with a secret and singular sense of inferiority to even so new and raw a community as Missouri, because of its possession of slavery. Governor Edwards, complaining so late as 1829 of the superior mail facilities afforded to Missouri, says: "I can conceive of no reason for this preference, unless it be supposed that because the people of Missouri have negroes to work for them they are to be considered as gentlefolks ent.i.tled to higher consideration than us plain 'free-State' folks who have to work for ourselves."

The attempt was at last seriously made to open the State to slavery by the Legislature of 1822-3. The Governor, Edward Coles, of Virginia, a strong antislavery man, had been elected by a division of the pro- slavery party, but came in with a Legislature largely against him. The Senate had the requisite pro-slavery majority of two-thirds for a convention. In the House of Representatives there was a contest for a seat upon the result of which the two-thirds majority depended. The seat was claimed by John Shaw and Nicholas Hansen, of Pike County. The way in which the contest was decided affords a curious ill.u.s.tration of the moral sense of the advocates of slavery. They wanted at this session to elect a senator and provide for the convention. Hansen would vote for their senator and not for the convention. Shaw would vote for the convention, but not for Thomas, their candidate for senator. In such a dilemma they determined not to choose, but impartially to use both. They gave the seat to Hansen, and with his vote elected Thomas; they then turned him out, gave the place to Shaw, and with his vote carried the act for submitting the convention question to a popular vote. They were not more magnanimous in their victory than scrupulous in the means by which they had gained it. The night after the vote was taken they formed in a wild and drunken procession, and visited the residences of the Governor and the other free-State leaders, with loud and indecent demonstrations of triumph.