The Settlement of Illinois, 1778-1830 Part 4

Sometimes immigrants debarked at Fort Ma.s.sac and completed their journey by land. Two roads led from Fort Ma.s.sac, one called the lower road and the other the upper road, the former, practicable only in the dry season and then only for travel on foot or on horseback, was some eighty miles long, while the latter was one hundred and fifty miles long. Roads of a like character connected Kaskaskia and Cahokia.(216)

A party of more than one hundred and fifty, which came from Virginia to the New Design settlement in 1797, set out from the south branch of the Potomac. They came from Redstone (now Brownsville), on the Monongahela, to Fort Ma.s.sac, on flat-boats, and then by land, in twenty-one days, to New Design. The summer was wet and hot, a malignant fever broke out among the newcomers, and one-half of them died before winter. The old settlers were not affected by the fever, but they were too few to properly care for so many immigrants.(217)

Commerce in Illinois was in its infancy. Some cattle, corn, pork, and various other commodities were sent at irregular intervals to New Orleans.(218) The fur trade was carried on much as under the French regime. Salt was made at the salt springs on Saline Creek, the labor being performed chiefly by Kentucky and Tennessee slaves under the supervision of contractors who leased the works from the United States. The contractors agreed to sell no salt at the works for more than fifty cents per bushel, but by means of silent partners to whom the entire supply was sold, the price was sometimes raised as high as two dollars per bushel.(219) The commerce of the West suffered from a lack of vessels going from New Orleans to Atlantic ports, and as a result corn sold in New Orleans at fifty cents per bushel in 1805, while in some of the Atlantic ports it sold for more than two dollars. At the same time the West had a good crop, and Kentucky alone could have spared five hundred thousand bushels of corn, if it could have been shipped.(220)

To secure laborers was difficult. A pet.i.tion of 1796 said that farm laborers could not be secured for less than one dollar per day, exclusive of washing, lodging, and boarding; that every kind of tradesman was paid from one dollar and a half to two dollars per day, and that at these prices laborers were scarce. Labor was cheaper on the Spanish side of the Mississippi, because of the larger proportion of slaves.(221) These wages were doubtless high in comparison with those paid in the East, just as the one dollar per day and board paid at the Galena lead mines in 1788 was more than double the wages then paid in New England,(222) but an Illinois price list of 1795 shows that the wages of 1796 were by no means comparable to those of today in purchasing power. Making shoes was two dollars per pair; potatoes were one dollar per bushel; brandy, one dollar per quart; corn, one dollar per bushel.(223)

Among the early difficulties in the way of settlement, one of the most persistent was the presence of prairies. This is by no means far-fetched, although it sounds so to modern ears. In 1786, Monroe wrote to Jefferson concerning the Northwest Territory: "A great part of the territory is miserably poor, especially that near Lakes Michigan and Erie, and that upon the Mississippi and the Illinois consists of extensive plains which have not had, from appearances, and will not have, a single bush on them for ages. The districts, therefore, within which these fall will never contain a sufficient number of inhabitants to ent.i.tle them to membership in the confederacy."(224) Some of the most fertile of the Illinois prairies were not settled until far into the nineteenth century. The false prophets of the early days will be judged less harshly if we recall that wood was then a necessity, that no railroads and few roads existed, that wells now in use in prairie regions are much deeper than the early settlers could dig, and that the vast quant.i.ties of coal under the surface of Illinois were undiscovered.

As causes for the fact that more than a quarter of a century after the Revolution, Illinois had a population estimated at only eleven thousand, may be suggested the presence of hostile Indians; the inability of settlers to secure a t.i.tle to their land; the unsettled condition of the slavery question; the great distance from the older portions of the United States and from any market; the fact that Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana had vast quant.i.ties of unoccupied land more accessible to emigrants than was Illinois; the danger and the cost of moving; privation incident to a scanty population, such as lack of roads, schools, churches and mills; the existence of large prairies in Illinois. To remove or mitigate these difficulties was still the problem of Illinois settlers. On some of them a beginning had been made before 1809, but none were yet removed.

CHAPTER IV. ILLINOIS DURING ITS TERRITORIAL PERIOD. 1809 TO 1818.

I. The Land and Indian Questions.

Probably nothing affected settlement in Illinois from 1809 to 1818 more profoundly than did changes in the land question, for during this period Congress pa.s.sed important acts relative to land sales, and this was also the period of the first sales of public lands in the territory. It seems strange that such sales should have been so long delayed, yet the settlement of French claims, although begun by the Governor of the Northwest Territory at an early day, and continued by commissioners authorized by Congress and appointed in 1804, was incomplete when Illinois became a separate territory, and the United States government adhered to its policy of selling no land in the territory until the claims were finally adjudicated. When a list of decisions reported by the commissioners to Congress late in 1809 was confirmed in the following May,(225) and the next year a long list of rejected claims arising chiefly from the work of professional falsifiers, was reported,(226) it seemed probable that the work was nearing completion, but a final settlement was still delayed, and the long-suffering Illinois squatters were bitterly disappointed when, in February, 1812, in accordance with a resolution presented by the Committee on Public Lands, Congress made provision for the appointment of a committee to revise the confirmations made by the Governor years before.(227) The first legislature of Illinois met in the succeeding November, and adopted a memorial to Congress in which it was pointed out that the establishment of a land-office in the territory, several years before, had led to the opinion that the public land would soon be sold, and that because of this opinion those who const.i.tuted the majority of the inhabitants of the territory had been induced to settle, hoping that they would have an opportunity to purchase land before they should have made such improvements as would tempt the compet.i.tion of avaricious speculators. The fulfillment of this hope having been long deferred, many squatters had now made valuable improvements which they were in danger of losing, either at the public sales of land or through the designs of the few speculators who had bought from the needy and unbusinesslike French most of the unlocated claims. For the relief of the squatters a law was desired that would permit actual settlers to enter the land on which their improvements stood, and requiring persons holding unlocated claims to locate them on unimproved lands lying in the region designated by Congress for that purpose. It was also hoped that as Congress had given one hundred acres of land to each regular soldier, as much would be granted to each member of the Illinois militia, since the militiaman had not only fought as bravely as the regular, but had also furnished his own supplies. If such a donation was not made it was hoped that a right of preemption would be given to the militia, or failing even this, that they might be given the right, legally, to collect from anyone entering their land, the value of their improvements.(228) In proof of the fact stated in the memorial, that speculators had bought many French claims, it may be noted that William Morrison had ninety-two of the claims granted at Kaskaskia, his affirmed claims comprising more than eighteen thousand acres, exclusive of a large number of claims measured in French units, while John Edgar received a satisfactory report on claims aggregating more than forty thousand acres, in addition to a number of claims previously affirmed to him.(229)

A few days after preparing the above memorial, the legislature prepared an address to Congress, in which reference was made to the arrangement made between Congress and Ohio by the Act of April 30, 1802, granting to Ohio two salt springs on condition that the state should agree not to tax such public lands as should be sold within her borders, until after five years from the date of sale. Illinois wished in similar fashion to gain control of the salt springs on Saline creek. The Illinois delegate in Congress was instructed that if the bargain could not be made, he should attempt to secure an appropriation for opening a road from Shawneetown to the Saline and thence to Kaskaskia. It was also desired that the Secretary of the Treasury should authorize the designation of the college township reserved by the Ordinance of 1787 and by the Act of 1804, and because "labor in this Territory is abundant, and laborers at this time extremely scarce,"

it was hoped that slaves from Kentucky or elsewhere might be employed at the salines for a period of not more than three years, after which they should return to their masters.(230) Each prayer of this address was granted. The enabling act and the Illinois const.i.tution ceded the salt springs to the state and agreed that public lands sold in Illinois should be exempt from taxation for five years from date of sale; the Illinois Const.i.tution provided for the employment of slaves at the salt works; an act provided for the location of the college township; and in 1816 the making of the desired road was authorized, although at the beginning of 1818 the route had been merely surveyed and mapped.(231)

The memorial which preceded the address was also in large measure successful. An act of February, 1813, granted to the squatters in Illinois the right of preempting a quarter section, each, of the lands they occupied, and of entering the land upon the payment of one-twentieth of the purchase money, as was then required in private sales.(232) This act was of prime importance. For more than thirty years settlers in Illinois had improved their lands at the risk of losing them. Since the appointment, in 1804, of commissioners to settle the French land claims, the settlers had been expecting the public lands, including those they occupied, to be offered for sale; thus it was inevitable that anxiety concerning the right of preemption should increase as the settlement of claims neared completion, and contemporaries record that the inability to secure land t.i.tles seriously r.e.t.a.r.ded settlement;(233) now, however, the granting of the right of preemption, before any public lands in Illinois were offered for sale, ended the long suspense of the settlers. Years before this, Kentucky, now selling its public lands at twenty cents per acre, had pa.s.sed liberal preemption laws, and they were repeatedly renewed,(234) facts which increased the anxiety of Illinois.

Year after year the settlement of land claims dragged on, thus delaying the sales of land.(235) In an official report of December, 1813, it is stated that: "In the Territory of Illinois, two land-offices are directed by law to be opened; one at Kaskaskia, the other at Shawneetown, so soon as the private claims and donations are all located, and the lands surveyed, which are in great forwardness."(236) A tract of land was set apart in April, 1814, to satisfy the claims recommended by the commissioners for confirmation.(237) A report of November, 1815, said that the commissioners hoped to open the land-office at Kaskaskia on May 15, 1816; and finally, in a report on the public lands sold from October 1, 1815, to September 30, 1816, we find that about thirty-four thousand acres have been sold at Shawneetown and somewhat less than thirteen thousand acres at Kaskaskia, the price at the latter place being precisely the two dollars per acre which was then the minimum, while that at Shawneetown was slightly higher,(238) presumably due to the sale of town lots, which had been authorized in 1810, although no sales took place earlier than 1814.(239)

The long delay in opening the land-offices in Illinois was fatal to an early settlement of the region, because the old states had public lands which they offered for sale at low rates, thus depriving Illinois of a fair chance as a compet.i.tor. In 1779 Kentucky granted to each family which had settled before January 1, 1778, the right of preemption-four hundred acres if no improvement had been made and one thousand acres if a hut had been built. The preemptor, by a law of 1786, was to pay 13_s_. 4_d._ per one hundred acres.(240) In 1781 the sheriffs of Lincoln, Fayette, and Jefferson counties, Virginia, were authorized to survey not more than four hundred acres for each poor family in Kentucky, for which twenty shillings per one hundred acres should be paid within two and one-half years.(241) In 1791 more than three and one-half millions of acres were sold in New York at eight pence per acre, while many thousands of acres in addition were sold for less than four shillings per acre-many for less than two shillings.(242) Pennsylvania offered homestead claims, in 1792, at seven pounds ten shillings per hundred acres.(243)

In December, 1796, Kentucky sheriffs were ordered to sell no more land for taxes until directed by the legislature to do so.(244) In 1800, and again in 1812, Kentucky offered land at twenty cents per acre, and in 1820 at fifteen cents per acre,(245) while during the interval preemption acts were repeatedly pa.s.sed.(246) Land in Tennessee sold at from twelve and one-half to twenty-five cents per acre in 1814, and in 1819 at fifty cents.(247)

In 1816 various cla.s.ses of claimants were given increased facilities and an extension of time for locating their claims in Illinois. The business of satisfying claims was to linger for years, but with the opening of the land-offices it ceased to be a potent factor in r.e.t.a.r.ding settlement.(248)

One writer says of Illinois: "The public lands have rarely sold for more than five dollars per acre, _at auction_. Those sold at Edwardsville in October, 1816, averaged four dollars. Private sales at the land-office are fixed by law, at two dollars per acre. The old French locations command various prices, from one to fifty dollars. t.i.tles derived from the United States government are always valid, and those from individuals rarely false."(249) At this time emigrants were going in large numbers to Missouri, and the Illinois river country, not yet relieved of its Indian t.i.tle, was being explored.(250)

Reports concerning the sales of public lands give the quant.i.ty of land sold in Illinois toward the close of the territorial period, the figures for 1817 and 1818 being as follows:

Acres in Acres in Jan. 1, Sept. 30, 1817. 1818. 1818. 1818.

Shawneetown 72,384 216,315 $291,429 $637,468 Kaskaskia 90,493 121,052 209,295 406,288 Edwardsville(251) 149,165 121,923 301,701 451,499(252) 312,042 459,290 $802,425 $1,495,255

The percentage of debt showed a marked increase in the first nine months of 1818. There were received in three-quarters of 1817 and 1818, respectively:

1817. 1818.

At Shawneetown $32,837 $112,759 At Kaskaskia 41,218 68,975 At Edwardsville 41,426 78,788

During this same period the receipts at Steubenville, Marietta, and Wooster, Ohio, decreased,(253) showing that Illinois was beginning to surpa.s.s Ohio as an objective point for emigrants wishing to enter land.

The Indian question was interwoven with the land question during the territorial period. In 1809 the Indians relinquished their claim to some small tracts of land lying near the point where the Wabash ceases to be a state boundary line.(254) No more cessions were made until after the war of 1812. Although the population of Illinois increased, during the territorial period, from some eleven thousand to about forty thousand, the increase before the war was slight, and thus it came about that during the war the few whites were kept busy defending themselves from the large and hostile Indian population. So well does the manner of defence in Illinois ill.u.s.trate the frontier character of the region that a sketch of the same may be given. When, in 1811, the Indians became hostile and murdered a few whites, the condition of the settlers was precarious in the extreme. Today the term city would be almost a favor to a place containing no more inhabitants than were then to be found in the white settlements in Illinois. Moreover, few as were the whites, they were dispersed in a long half-oval extending from a point on the Mississippi near the present Alton southward to the Ohio, and thence up that river and the Wabash to a point considerably north of Vincennes. This fringe of settlement was but a few miles wide in some places, while so spa.r.s.e was the population near the mouth of the Ohio that the communication between northern and southern Indians was unchecked. Carlyle was regarded as the extreme eastern boundary of settlements to the westward; a fort on Muddy River, near where the old Fort Ma.s.sac trace crossed the stream, was considered as one of the most exposed situations; and Fort La Motte, on a creek of the same name above Vincennes, was a far northern point. The exposed outside was some hundreds of miles long, and the interior and north were occupied by ten times as many hostile savages as there were whites in the country, the savages being given counsel and ammunition by the British garrisons on the north.(255) Under conditions then existing, aid from the United States could be expected only in the event of dire necessity. Stout frontiersmen were almost ready to seek refuge in flight, but no general exodus took place, although in February, 1812, Governor Edwards wrote to the Secretary of War: "The alarms and apprehensions of the people are becoming so universal, that really I should not be surprised if we should, in three months, lose more than one-half of our present population. In places, in my opinion, entirely out of danger, many are removing. In other parts, large settlements are about to be totally deserted. Even in my own neighborhood, several families have removed, and others are preparing to do so in a week or two. A few days past, a gentleman of respectability arrived here from Kentucky, and he informed me that he saw on the road, in one day, upwards of twenty wagons conveying families out of this Territory. Every effort to check the prevalence of such terror seems to be ineffectual, and although much of it is unreasonably indulged, yet it is very certain the Territory will very shortly be in considerable danger.

Its physical force is very inconsiderable, and is growing weaker, while it presents numerous points of attack."(256)

To the first feeling of fear succeeded a determination to hold the ground.

Before the middle of 1812, Governor Edwards had established Fort Russell, a few miles northwest of the present Edwardsville, bringing to this place, which was to be his headquarters, the cannon which Louis XIV. had had placed in Fort Chartres;(257) and two volunteer companies had been raised, and had "ranged to a great distance-princ.i.p.ally between the Illinois and the Kaskaskia rivers, and sometimes between the Kaskaskia and the Wabash-always keeping their line of march never less than one and sometimes three days' journey outside of all the settlements"(258)-which incidentally shows what great unoccupied regions still existed even in the southern part of Illinois. As the rangers furnished their own supplies, the two companies went out alternately for periods of fifteen days.

Sometimes the company on duty divided, one part marching in one direction and the other in the opposite, in order to produce the greatest possible effect upon the Indians. Settlers on the frontier-and that comprised a large proportion of the population-"forted themselves," as it was then expressed. Where a few families lived near each other, one of the most substantial houses was fortified, and here the community staid at night, and in case of imminent danger in the daytime as well. Isolated outlying families left their homes and retired to the nearest fort. Such places of refuge were numerous and many were the attacks which they successfully withstood.

Rangers and frontier forts were used with much effect, but the great dispersion of settlement and the large numbers of Indians combined to make it wholly impossible to make such means of defence entirely adequate. In August, 1812, the Governor wrote to the Secretary of War: "The princ.i.p.al settlements of this Territory being on the Mississippi, are at least one hundred and fifty miles from those of Indiana, and immense prairies intervene between them. There can, therefore, be no concert of operations for the protection of their frontiers and ours.... No troops of any kind have yet arrived in this Territory, and I think you may count on hearing of a b.l.o.o.d.y stroke upon us very soon. I have been extremely reluctant to send my family away, but, unless I hear shortly of more a.s.sistance than a few rangers, I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and stand my ground as long as possible."(259) The "b.l.o.o.d.y stroke" predicted by the Governor fell on the garrison at Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now stands. Some regular troops were subsequently sent to the territory, but the war did not lose its frontier character. One of the most characteristic features was that troops sometimes set out on a campaign of considerable length, in an uninhabited region, without any baggage train and practically without pack horses, the men carrying their provisions on their horses, and the horses living on wild gra.s.s.(260) Unflagging energy was shown by the settlers, several effective campaigns being carried on, and by the close of 1814 the war was closed in Illinois.(261)

Extinction of Indian t.i.tles to land was r.e.t.a.r.ded by the war and also by the policy of the United States, which was expressed by Secretary of War Crawford, in 1816, as follows: "The determination to purchase land only when demanded for settlement will form the settled policy of the Government. Experience has sufficiently proven that our population will spread over any cession, however extensive, before it can be brought into market, and before there is any regular and steady demand for settlement, thereby increasing the difficulty of protection, embarra.s.sing the Government by broils with the natives, and rendering the execution of the laws regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes utterly impracticable."(262) Some progress, however, was made in extinguishing Indian t.i.tles during the territorial period after the close of the war. In 1816, several tribes confirmed the cession of 1804 of land lying south of an east and west line pa.s.sing through the southern point of Lake Michigan, and ceded a route for an Illinois-Michigan ca.n.a.l.(263) At Edwardsville, on September 25, 1818, the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Michigamia, Cahokia, and Tamarois ceded a tract comprising most of southern and much of central Illinois.(264) The significance of this cession would have been immense had it not been that it was made by weak tribes, while the powerful Kickapoo still claimed and held all that part of the ceded tract lying north of the parallel of 39-a little to the north of the mouth of the Illinois river. This Kickapoo claim included the fertile and already famous Sangamon country, in which the state capital was eventually to be located, and squatters were pressing hard upon the Indian frontier, yet the Indians still held the land when Illinois became a state.

During the territorial period, Illinois gained the long-sought right of preemption; the French claims ceased to r.e.t.a.r.d settlement; some progress was made in the extinction of Indian t.i.tles, and the sale of public land was begun. The new state was to find the Indian question a pressing one, and some changes in the land system were yet desired, but the crucial point was pa.s.sed.

II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.

The act for the division of Indiana Territory provided that Illinois, during the first stage of its territorial existence, should have a government similar to that of the Northwest Territory under the Ordinance of 1787. In 1809 there were in Illinois two distinct and hostile parties, which had been formed on questions arising in Indiana Territory before division. It was with sound judgment, therefore, that the President, going outside of Illinois, appointed as Governor, Ninian Edwards of Kentucky, a native of Maryland, who successfully resisted all efforts to involve him in party quarrels.(265)

Laws for the government of the territory were to be chosen by the Governor and the judges from the laws of the states. The judges were Jesse B.

Thomas and William Sprigg, natives of Maryland, and Alexander Stuart, a native of Virginia. It is worthy of note that of the twelve laws chosen before the meeting of the first territorial legislature, five were from Kentucky, three from Georgia, two from Virginia, one from South Carolina, and one from Pennsylvania.(266) A people practically southern in origin was being governed by officials from the south under southern laws.

Illinois entered the second grade of territorial government in 1812, electing its first legislature in October.(267) In the preceding May, Congress had pa.s.sed an act making radical and most important extensions in the suffrage in Illinois, over that which had been prescribed by the Ordinance of 1787. The new provision was: "Every free white male person who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and who shall have paid a county or territorial tax, and who shall have resided one year in said Territory previous to any general election, and be at the time of any such election a resident thereof, shall be ent.i.tled to vote for members of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the said Territory." Each county was to elect one member of the Legislative Council, to serve for four years. The territorial delegate to Congress was also made elective by the citizens.(268) One has but to consider what a complete revolution this act brought about to appreciate its great significance. Previously the Legislative Council had been appointive by the President of the United States, from nominees of the territorial House of Representatives, the nominees being twice the number necessary; the delegate to Congress had not been chosen by popular vote; and a freehold qualification for the elective franchise had obtained. Early pet.i.tions show how much the people complained of a landed aristocracy,(269) and letters written by Governor Edwards early in 1812 show how well founded was the complaint. No preemption act had yet been pa.s.sed, and of the more than twelve thousand inhabitants of Illinois some two hundred and twenty possessed a freehold of fifty acres, thus giving the balance of power, if the territory should enter the second grade under the old provision, to one hundred and eleven persons. Nearly one-third of the entire population lived either near the Ohio or between it and the Kaskaskia, and among them there were not more than three or four freeholders, and not one who possessed two hundred acres-the necessary qualification for a representative. With no public lands yet offered for sale, with no right of preemption, with a freehold qualification for the suffrage, this law enfranchising squatters was of prime importance.(270)

The first legislature had few French members, and was apparently southern in nativity.(271) After more than three years and a half of legislation by the Governor and judges, the inhabitants at last had an elective legislature. The journals of the two houses indicate that the belief that had been expressed in pet.i.tions to Congress some years before that such a body would provide an efficient government, was well founded. The laws pa.s.sed were eminently practical for the frontier conditions under which they were to operate.(272) A man contemplating settlement in Illinois could now be sure that he would be governed by Illinois men whom he had a share in electing.

The rude character of the facilities for transportation is indicated by the fact that the earlier laws of the territory deal with ferries only rarely and with bridges not at all, while as time progresses and population increases, ferries multiply and bridges begin to be constructed. By 1817-18 the desire for banks and for internal improvements, which was to be disastrous to the state at a later period, began to show itself. As examples, the Bank of Cairo and the Illinois Navigation Company will suffice. Nine men purchased the low peninsula lying near the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were incorporated by "An Act to Incorporate the City and Bank of Cairo." A site for a city comprising at least two thousand lots, with streets eighty feet wide, was to be laid out. The lots were to be sold at one hundred and fifty dollars each and were to be not less than one hundred and twenty by sixty-six feet in size. Of the purchase money, two-thirds should go into the stock of the Bank of Cairo, and one-third to a fund to build d.y.k.es to keep the city from being flooded.(273) Considering the time and the location, the scheme was utterly impracticable. "An Act to Incorporate the Stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company" authorized the formation of a company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, for the purpose of cutting a ca.n.a.l through the peninsula between the Ohio and the Mississippi. Within twelve years a ca.n.a.l sufficiently large for the pa.s.sage of a vessel of twenty tons burden should be completed. The company was given the right of eminent domain.(274) Here again the character of the project was unsuited to existing conditions. Population was increasing rapidly at the time these laws were pa.s.sed, but they required for their success an increase much more rapid. They were, however, pleasing to the settlers and the prospective settlers of the day.

On January 16, 1818, Mr. Pope, of Illinois, was appointed chairman of a select committee to consider a pet.i.tion from the Illinois legislature praying for a state government. One week later the committee reported a bill to enable Illinois to form such a government, and to admit the state into the union. When the enabling act came up for discussion, Mr. Pope offered the amendment which changed the northern boundary of Illinois from a line due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, as provided by the Ordinance of 1787, to a line running from that lake to the Mississippi on the parallel of 42 30'. "The object of this amendment, Mr.

Pope said, was to gain, for the proposed state, a coast on Lake Michigan.

This would offer additional security to the perpetuity of the union, inasmuch as the state would thereby be connected with the states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, through the lakes. The facility of opening a ca.n.a.l between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, said Mr.

Pope, is acknowledged by every one who has visited the place. Giving to the proposed state the port of Chicago (embraced in the proposed limits), will draw its attention to the opening of the communication between the Illinois River and that place, and the improvement of that harbor. It was believed, he said, upon good authority, that the line of separation between Indiana and Illinois would strike Lake Michigan south of Chicago, and not pa.s.s west of it, as had been supposed by some geographers...."

Although an avowed violation of the Ordinance of 1787, the amendment was adopted without division or recorded debate. Mr. Pope also secured an amendment to the effect that the state's proportion of the proceeds of the sales of public lands, instead of being applied to the making of roads and ca.n.a.ls in the state, should be used in making roads leading to the state, and for the encouragement of learning, two-fifths being applied to the former purpose. Pope pointed out that people would build roads as they needed them, much more readily than they would supply schools, and that waste school lands in a new country would produce slight revenue.

Subsequent history of the state justified both statements. The enabling act met with little opposition and was signed by President Monroe on April 18, 1818.(275)

One of the provisions of the enabling act was that, in order to become a state, Illinois must have as many as forty thousand inhabitants. In antic.i.p.ation of such a provision, the territorial legislature had pa.s.sed a law in January, 1818, providing that a census of the territory should be taken between April 1 and June 1. A supplemental act provided that as a great increase in population might be expected between June 1 and December, census takers should continue to take the census in their districts of all who should remove into them between June 1 and December 1. The law as framed gave an opportunity to count not only immigrants, but to re-count all who moved from one county to another (such moving being common), and to count in each successive county persons pa.s.sing through the state. There is no reasonable doubt that at the time the census was taken, the territory had fewer than forty thousand inhabitants. Dana gives a census of 1818, in which the number is given as thirty-four thousand six hundred and sixty-six, and adds: "Another enumeration having been taken a few months after, the amount of population returned was forty thousand one hundred and fifty-six, which exceeded the number ent.i.tling the territory to become a state."(276)

In August, 1818, the Const.i.tution of Illinois was completed. Its provisions most likely to influence settlement were those concerning the elective franchise and slavery. It provided that "In all elections, all white male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the state six months next preceding the election, shall enjoy the right of an elector; but no person shall be ent.i.tled to vote except in the county or district in which he shall actually reside at the time of the election." Slaves could not hereafter be brought into the state, but existing slavery was not abolished, and existing indentures-and some were for ninety-nine years-should be carried out, although future indentures should not run for a longer term than one year. Male children of slaves or indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one, and females at eighteen. Slaves from other states could be employed only at the Saline Creek salt works, and there only until 1825.(277)

During the congressional debate on the acceptance of the Illinois Const.i.tution, objection to admitting the state was made on the ground that the number of inhabitants was doubtful, and that slavery was not distinctly prohibited, Tallmadge, of New York, who later wished to restrict slavery in Missouri, being the chief objector. The state was admitted, however, and on December 4, 1818, the representatives and senators from Illinois took their seats in Congress.(278)

Between 1809 and 1818, Illinois pa.s.sed from a non-representative territorial government to a liberal state government. The energy of the settlers had done much to hasten the change, and the change, in turn, did much to hasten settlement.