Something of Men I Have Known Part 44

"'Till the war-drum throbs no longer, And the battle-flags are furled In the parliament of man, The federation of the world.'

"Through the instrumentality in no small measure of the man personally known to some who hear me, the man McLean County delighted to honor, no less as a private citizen than as President, this Government, untouched by the finger of time, has descended to us. Let it never be forgotten that the responsibility of its preservation and transmission will rest upon the successive generations of his countrymen, as they shall come and go.

"Truly it has been said: 'To-day is the pupil of yesterday,'

and also 'History is the great teacher of human nature by means of object-lessons drawn from the whole recorded life of human nature.'

There is, then, no dead past. Every event is in a measure significant.

The annals of the ambitions, the crimes, the miseries, the wrongs, the struggles, the achievements of men in the long past are fraught with lessons of deep import to all succeeding generations. Each age is the heir to that which preceded. We make progress in proportion as we wisely ponder significant events.

"McLean County had its historical beginning as a dependent but distinct political organization on the joyous Christmas Day of 1830. Stretching backward from that date, its history is bound up solely in that of Illinois, under its various organizations and names. A brief time upon occasion such as this given to a hurried review of the masterful epochs in the history of the great State of which our own county is so important a part, cannot be wholly misspent.

"Bearing in mind that 'that which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before,' significant events of the past must be known, to the end that we intelligently comprehend the present, and are enabled, even in scant measure, to forecast the future.

"No State of the American union has a history of more intense interest than our own. Its early chapters, indeed, savor of the romantic rather than of the real. I do not speak of the long-ago time when Illinois forest and prairie were the house and hunting-ground of the red men, and his frail bark the only craft known to its rivers. That period belongs to the border-land age of tradition rather than of veritable history. It is of Illinois under the domination of civilized men I would speak.

"For near a century preceding the Treaty of Paris in 1763, 'the Illinois country' was a part of the French domain. Inseparably linked with that portion of its history are names that will live with those of the Cabots and Columbus. The great navigator in his lonely search for a new pathway to the Indies was buoyed by a courage, a yearning for discovery, scarce greater than that which in the heart of the new continent sustained the later voyagers and discoverers, Marquette, Joliet, Hennepin, and La Salle.

"America's obligation to France is enduring--for explorers in the seventeenth century no less than for defenders in that which immediately followed. The historic page which tells of the lofty heroism of Lafayette has for us no deeper interest than that which records the daring achievements of the early French pathfinders and voyagers. Two centuries and a half ago Marquette and Joliet, bearing the commission of the French Governor of Quebec, embarked upon their expedition for the discovery of new countries to the southward. Animated by the earnest desire of extending the blessings of religion no less than that of adding to the domain of their imperial master, they set out upon an expedition which has become historic. The bare recital of what befell them would fill volumes. Now meeting with the scattered tribes of Indians, bestowing presents and in turn sharing the hospitality offered; now speaking words of admonition and of instruction; now gathering up the crude materials for history; now reverently setting up the cross in the wilderness; again threading the pathless forests, or in frail barks sailing unknown waters, they pursued their perilous journey.

"In time, after looking out upon the waters of Lake Michigan, crossing Lake Winnebago, visiting the ancient villages of the Kickapoos, 'with joy indescribable,' as Marquette declared, they for the first time beheld the Mississippi. In June, 1673, upon the east bank of the great river, they landed upon the soil of what is now the State of Illinois. At the little village they first visited they received hospitable treatment. Its inmates are known in our early history as 'the Illini'--a word signifying _men._ The euphonic termination added by the Frenchmen gives us the name Illinois. It is related that, upon the first appearance of Marquette and Joliet at the door of the princ.i.p.al wigwam of the village, they were greeted by an aged native with the words: 'The sun is beautiful, Frenchmen, when you come to visit us; you shall enter in peace into all our cabins; it is well, my brothers, you come.' In the light of the marvellous results of the visit, the words of the aged chieftain seem prophetic. We, too, may say it was well they came.

"The glory of having discovered the upper Mississippi and the valley which bears its name belongs to Marquette and Joliet. It was theirs to add the vast domain under the name 'New France' to the empire of _le Grand Monarque._ In very truth a princely gift. But no history of the great valley and the majestic river would be complete which failed to tell something of the priest and historian, Hennepin, and of the knightly adventures of the Chevalier La Salle.

"Much, indeed, that is romantic surrounds the entire career of La Salle. Severing his connection with a theological school in France, his fortunes were early cast in the New World. From Quebec, the ancient French capital of this continent, he projected an expedition which was to add empire to his own country and to cast a glamour about his own name. It has been said that his dream was of a western waterway to the Pacific Ocean. In 1669, with an outfit that had cost him his entire fortune, with a small party he ascended in canoes the St. Lawrence, and a few weeks later was upon the broad Ontario. Out of the mists and shadows that enveloped much of his subsequent career, it were impossible at all times to gather that which is authentic. It is enough that, with Hennepin as one of his fellow-voyagers, he reached the Ohio and in due time navigated the Illinois, meantime visiting many of the ancient villages.

"But his great achievement--and that with which abides his imperishable fame--was his perilous descent of the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico. On the sixth day of April, 1682, upon the east bank of the lower Mississippi, with due form and ceremony and amid the solemn chanting of the _Te Deum_ and the plaudits of his comrades, La Salle took formal possession of the Louisiana country in the name of his royal master, Louis the Fourteenth of France.

"For the period of ninety-two years, beginning with the discoveries of Marquette and Joliet, the Illinois country was a part of the French possessions. Sovereignty over the vast domain of which it was a part was exercised by the French King through his commandant at Quebec. But as has been truly said, 'The French sought and claimed more than they had the ability to hold or possess. Their line of domain extended from the St. Lawrence around the Great Lakes and through the valley of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of over three thousand miles.' Truly a magnificent domain, but one destined soon to pa.s.s forever from the possession of the French monarch and his line.

"The hour had struck, and upon the North American continent the ancient struggle for supremacy between France and her traditional enemy was to find b.l.o.o.d.y arbitrament. Great Britain claimed as a part of her colonial possessions in the New World the territory bordering upon the Great Lakes and the rich lands of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. As to the merits of the French and English contention as to superior right by discovery or conquest, it were idle now to argue. Our concern is with the marvellous results of the long-continued struggle which for all time determined the question of race supremacy upon this continent.

"Pa.s.sing rapidly the minor incidents of the varying fortunes of the stupendous struggle which had been transferred for the time from the Old World to the New, we reach the hour which was to mark an epoch in history. The time, the thirteenth of September, 1759; the place, the Heights of Abraham at Quebec. There and then was fought out one of the pivotal battles of the ages. It was the closing act in a great drama. The question to be determined: Whether the English-speaking race or its hereditary foe was to be master of the continent. It was in reality a struggle for empire --the magnificent domain stretching from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. The incidents of the battle need not now be told.

Never were English or French soldiery led by more knightly captains.

The pa.s.sing years have not dispelled the romance or dimmed the glory that gathered about the name of Wolfe and Montcalm. Dying at the self-same moment--one amid the victors, the other amid the vanquished--their names live together in history.

"By the treaty of Paris which followed, France surrendered to her successful rival all claim to the domain east of the Mississippi River. In accordance with the terms of the treaty, Gage, the commander of the British forces in America, took formal possession of the recently conquered territory. Proclamation of this fact was made to the inhabitants of the Illinois country in 1764, and a garrison soon thereafter established at Kaskaskia. Here the rule of the British was for the time undisputed. British domination in the Mississippi Valley was, however, to be of short duration. Soon the events were hastening, the forces gathering, which were in turn to wrest from the crown no small part of the splendid domain won by Wolfe's brilliant victory at Quebec.

"In this hurried review I reach now an event of transcendent interest and one far-reaching in its consequences. While our Revolutionary War was in progress, and its glorious termination yet but dimly foreshadowed, General George Rogers Clark planned an expedition whose successful termination has given his name to the list of great conquerors. Bearing the commission of Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, the heroic Clark crossed the Ohio and began his perilous march. After enduring untold hards.h.i.+ps, the undaunted leader and his little band reached Kaskaskia. The British commander and his garrison were surprised and quickly captured. The British flag was lowered, and on the fourth day of July, 1778, the Illinois country was taken possession of in the name of the Commonwealth whose Governor had authorized the expedition.

"Five years later occurred an event of mighty significance, and of far-reaching consequence--one that in very truth marks the genesis of Illinois history. I refer to the cession by Virginia of the vast area stretching to the Mississippi--of which the spot upon which we are now a.s.sembled is a part--to the general Government.

To the deed of cession, by which Illinois became a part of the United States, as commissioners upon the part of Virginia, were signed the now historic names of Arthur Lee, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson.

"The next milestone of Illinois upon the pathway to statehood was what is so well known in our political history as the Ordinance of 1787. Not inaptly has it been called 'the second Magna Charta,'

'a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night,' in the settlement and government of the Northwestern States. Two provisions of the great ordinance possessed a value that cannot be measured by words: One, that the States to be formed out of said territory were to remain forever parts of the United States of America; the other, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist therein, otherwise than for crime whereof the party should have been duly convicted.

"The value of the great Ordinance to millions who have since found homes within the limits of the vast area embraced within its provision cannot be overstated. Our eyes behold to-day the marvellous results of the far-seeing statesmans.h.i.+p in which it was conceived.

"Momentous events now followed in rapid succession: the disastrous defeat of General St. Clair, first Governor of the Northwest Territory, near the old Miami village; the appointment of General Wayne, hero of Stony Point, to the command of the Western army; his crus.h.i.+ng defeat of the Indian foe at the Maumee Rapids, and the treaty of Greenville, which for the time gave protection to the frontiersmen against the savage; the attempt of the French minister, Genet, to create discord in the western country, and in fact to establish a Government in the Mississippi Valley, independent of that of the United States; and the threatened conflict with Spain regarding the free navigation of the Mississippi--all possess an interest to Illinoisans which time cannot abate.

"All apprehension, however, was for the time removed by the treaty between our Government and Spain, by which it was provided that the middle of the Mississippi should be our western border and that the navigation of the entire river to the Gulf should be free to all the people of the United States. Pa.s.sing over the later faithless attempt of Spain to abrogate this salient provision of the treaty, it is enough that the question was forever put at rest by the purchase by our Government in 1803, for fifteen millions of dollars, from the great Napoleon, of the entire Louisiana country, stretching from the Gulf to the domain of Canada--out of which have been carved sixteen magnificent States, destined to abide and remain forever sovereign parts of our federal Union.

"And while Spain has sustained crus.h.i.+ng and retributive defeat and her flag has disappeared forever from mainland and island of the western world, the great river, gathering its tributaries from northern lake to southern sea, flows unvexed through a mighty realm that knows no symbol of authority save only our own Stars and Stripes.

"Illinois was represented for the first time in a legislative chamber in the general a.s.sembly of the Northwest Territory, which convened in Cincinnati in 1799. By act of Congress in May, 1800, a new territorial organization was created, by which the territory now embraced in the States of Indiana and Illinois was formed, to be known as 'Indiana Territory,' and the capital located at Vincennes. In February, 1809, by act of Congress, the 'Territory of Illinois' was duly organized, its seat of government established at Kaskaskia. Nine years later--December, 1818--with a population scarcely one-half that of McLean County to-day, it was duly admitted a State of the federal Union.

"Beginning with Illinois at the coming of Joliet and Marquette in the seventeenth century, we have rapidly followed its thread of history for a century and a half, until it became a State of the American Union. We have seen it under the rule of the Frenchman, the Briton, the Virginian, under its various territorial organizations, until eighty-nine years ago it reached the dignity of statehood.

We have seen its seat of authority at Quebec, at New Orleans, at Cincinnati, at Vincennes, and finally at Kaskaskia. We have noted something of its marvellous development, of its wonderful increase in population.

"Just one hundred and seven years ago, when by act of Congress Illinois became part of the Indiana Territory, it contained a population of less than two thousand white persons, only eight hundred of whom were of the English-speaking race. Less than two decades later, with a population of less then forty thousand, and an area greater, with a single exception, than any of the original States, we have witnessed its admission to the Union. How marvellous the retrospect at this hour! And yet, 'the pendulum of history swings in centuries in the slow but sure progress of the human race to a higher and n.o.bler civilization.'

"Events of thrilling interest and of scarce less consequence than those already mentioned followed the admission of the State into the Union. In brief summary: The unsuccessful attempt to introduce slavery; the fatal duel between Stewart and Bennet and the trial and execution of the survivor for murder, thereby placing the ban of judicial condemnation upon the barbarous practice; the visit of Lafayette to Illinois and his brilliant entertainment by the Governor and Legislature at the old executive mansion; the removal of the State capital from the ancient French village of Kaskaskia to Vandalia, and near two decades later to Springfield; the memorable contest for Congress between Cook and McLean, each possessing in large measure the rare gift of eloquence, and both dying lamented in early manhood; the organization of two splendid counties that will keep the honored names of Cook and McLean in the memories of men to the latest posterity; the Black Hawk War and the final treaty of peace which followed the defeat and capture of the renowned Sac chief; the riots at Alton and the a.s.sa.s.sination of the heroic Lovejoy while defending the right of free speech and of a free press; the advent of the prophet Joseph Smith, the rapid growth of the Mormon Church, its power as a political factor in the State, the building of the million-dollar temple at Nauvoo, the murder of the Mormon prophet, and the final exodus of his adherents to the valley of the Wasatch and the Great Salt Lake; the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Ca.n.a.l, the precursor of grander material achievements soon to follow; the bravery of the Illinois troops during the war with Mexico; the wonderful tide of immigration flowing in from the older States and from Europe; the invaluable services of Senator Douglas in securing the celebrated land grant under which the Illinois Central Railroad was constructed, and Chicago brought into commercial touch with the River Ohio and the States to the southward; the dawn of the era of stupendous agricultural development, and of marvellous activity on all lines and through all channels of trade; the wonderful growth of Chicago, springing with giant bound, within the span of a single life, from a mere hamlet to be the second city upon the continent; the unparalleled railroad construction, giving Illinois a greater mileage than any one of her sister States; the immense development of its untold mineral resources, and the advance by leaps and bounds along all lines of manufacturing; the impetus given to the higher conception and purpose of human life by the creation of a splendid system of public schools and universities; the establishment of inst.i.tutions and asylums for the considerate care and relief of the unfortunate and afflicted of our kind; the building of homes 'for him who hath borne the battle and for his orphan'; the masterful debates between Lincoln and Douglas, the prelude to events destined to give pause to the world, and to change the trend of history. And, to crown all, how, when the nation's life was in peril, Illinois, true to her covenant under the great Ordinance that had given her being, gave one ill.u.s.trious son to the chief magistracy of his country, another to the captaincy of its armies, and sent her soldier heroes by myriads along every pathway of danger and of glory.

"As one standing, alas, 'upon the western slope,' let me adjure the young men of this magnificent county--my home for more than half a century--to study thoroughly the history of our own State, and of the grand republic of which it is a part. Illinois, in all that const.i.tutes true grandeur in a people, knows no superior among the great sisterhood of States. Her pathway from the beginning has been luminous with n.o.ble achievement. It is high privilege and high honor to be a citizen of this grand republic. It is in very truth a government of the people, in an important sense a government standing separate and apart; its foundations the morality, the intelligence, the patriotism of the people. Never forget that citizens.h.i.+p in such a government carries with it tremendous responsibility, a responsibility that we cannot evade. Study thoroughly how our liberties were achieved, and the benefits of stable government secured by the great compact which for more than a century, in peace and during the storm and stress of war, has held States and people in indissoluble union; and how, during the great civil conflict--the most stupendous the world has known--human liberty, through baptism of blood, obtained a new and grander meaning, and the Union established by our fathers was made, as we humbly trust in G.o.d, enduring for all time."