USA > Illinois > Cass County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Cass County, Volume II > Part 18
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the legislature. Notwithstanding the popularity and wide acquaintance of Rev. Peter Cartwright, he was beaten for Congress by Abraham Lin- coln. They had both been in the legislature from Sangamon County, and this was the first venture of either in national politics, except that Mr. Lincoln had been a candidate for presi- dential elector in 1844, on the ticket with Henry Clay, and been defeated. The elections during all of the time under the first constitution were without ballots, each voter stepping up to the polls and announcing how or for whom he wished to vote, and the election officers recorded the vote then and there. It was no secret, of course, how anyone voted. and at the election of 1846, William Holmes, who had been the first representative from Cass County, and a lifelong Whig. voted for Cartwright. the Democrat, against Lincoln, on the Whig ticket. For this act of party treason. he was roundly abused by the leaders of the Whigs in Cass County. Mr. Holmes justified his vote on the grounds that he did not personally like Mr. Lincoln, and the Rev. Cartwright was a personal friend and a frequent visitor at his home when on his preaching itinerary. Mr. Lincoln, however, was elected to Congress, and Cass County residents will always look upon it as a distinctive honor that they were represented in the national Con- gress by him. On the same day that Cass County was created a county by the legislature of this state. March 3. 1837. Abraham Lincoln, a member of that legislature. filed his protest against slavery, by resolutions, and had them spread upon the records of the House of Repre- sentatives. Cass County people feel that this is another tie binding them with Illinois' most illustrious and best man.
The entire county Whig ticket was elected, but Francis A. Arenz, the Whig candidate for the legislature. was defeated by Edward W. Turner, a Democrat.
At the election the question as to whether or not a constitutional convention should be called was put before the people. The proposition to hold the convention carried by a large ma- jority. The next spring, Judge Henry E. Sum- mer, of Beardstown, was elected a delegate to that convention, which met June 7. 1847, and concluded its labors August 31, 1847. The new constitution was submitted to the people and ratified by them at a special election held March 6, 1848, and it went into effect April 1 of that
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year, and hence is known as the Constitution oť 1S4S.
BIOGRAPHY OF JUDGE HENRY E. DUMMER.
Judge Henry E. Dummer was the only dele- gate from Cass County to any of the constitu- tional conventions held in this state. He was born at Hallowell, Me., April 9, 180S, and at- tended and was graduated from Bowdoin Col- lege, later took a law course at the Cambridge Law School, and was admitted to the bar and practiced for two years in his native state be- fore he came to Springfield, Ill., where he formed a partnership with John T, Stuart. in 1838 he dissolved the partnership, and moved to Beards- town, where he remained until 1864, serving the city as an alderman, was also probate jus- tice for Cass County, and served in the state senate for four years, having been elected dur- ing the trying period of 1SGO. Formerly a Whig, he became a Republican, and was a staunch supporter of Governor Richard Yates, the great "war governor" of Illinois. In 1864 he was made a delegate at large for the state to the Baltimore convention that renominated President Lincoln. An excellent lawyer and honorable man, he was a highly respected citizen of Cass County. In 1864 he removed to Jack- sonville, where he continued in practice of his profession, but his healtlı failing in 1878, he went to Mackinac, Mich. The change of climate did not avail, however, and he died at that place August 12, 187S, aged seventy years three months and three days.
CHAPTER XIII.
POLITICAL REPRESENTATION (CONTINUED).
AFTER THE MEXICAN WAR-GENERAL TAYLOR A PUB- LIC HERO-NOMINATED AND ELECTED PRESIDENT -GEN. LEWIS CASS THE DEMOCRATIC CANDI- DATE -- VIGOROUS WHIG CAMPAIGN IN 1S4S- QUESTION OF SLAVERY COMES TO THE FRONT- CAMPAIGN OF 1852-ELECTION OF FRANKLIN PIERCE-DISAPPEARANCE OF WHIG PARTY-A
STRINGENT LIQUOR LAW-STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS RE-ELECTED TO THE SENATE-THE KANSAS-NE- BRASKA BILL UNPOPULAR IN CASS-BILLS PASSED IN THE LEGISLATURE THROUGH THE ACTIVITY OF DR. SAMUEL CHRISTY-PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY- NOMINATION OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE-GREAT JOINT DEBATE OF CANDIDATES-INTERESTING DETAILS-NEWSPAPER REPORTS-RE-ELECTION. OF MR. DOUGLAS IN 1S59 -CAMPAIGN OF 1S60-A VERY INTERESTING BIT OF LOCAL HISTORY-HENRY CLAY'S OWN STORY- GOVERNOR YATES PROROGUES THE LEGISLATURE -KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE-RETURN OF PEACE-FURTHER CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION-A POLITICAL SIDE LIGHT-CAMPAIGNS OF 1SSS AND 1892-GRANDPA'A HAT-FREE SILVER CAMPAIGN -CASS COUNTY IN CONGRESS-REPRESENTATIVES IN THE LEGISLATURE.
AFTER THE MEXICAN WAR.
The citizens of Cass County soon adjusted themselves to the changes in political affairs with the adoption of the second constitution of the state, which went into force and effect April 1, 184S. The Whigs had been in the ascendancy, but the margin was growing dangerously small, and the opposition to the Mexican war mani- fested by the Whigs as a party had not added anything to the popularity of it, especially as the war had been prosecuted to a successful conclusion in a very short period. One result from the war was wholly unlooked for by the Whigs. Gen. Zachary Taylor, who had become the most conspicuous figure in that war, was the popular public hero at the close of the con- flict, and was, by the Whigs, taken as their candidate for the presidency. The administra- tion in power at Washington was Democratic, under the leadership of President Polk, who had beaten Henry Clay, the Whig idol, in 1844, and this administration made every effort to create a Democratic hero out of the partici- pants in the Mexican war so that the party might be ready with a suitable candidate to suc- ceed President Polk, who had given his word that lie would not be a candidate for re-election. The people could not be deceived as to who was the real hero of the war, and adhered in their devotion and popular admiration for General Taylor, "old Rough and Ready," as the soldiers serving under him called liim. Thus, in spite of the fact that Gen. Taylor was not favor- ably received by the leaders of the Whig party
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who looked upon themselves as the only simon- pure statesmen, he was nominated by that party, with Millard Fillmore for vice president, as the standard bearer in the presidential contest of 1848. The Democrats nominated Gen. Lewis ' Cass of Michigan for president, and William O. Butler of Kentucky for vice president. Gen. Cass, a man of high character, had been gov- ernor of Michigan territory, five years secretary of war, under President Jackson, and had been minister to France. He had served creditably in the war of 1812, but was not regarded highly as a military man, and his friends and the party newspapers supporting the administration tried the absurd expedient of making him out a mili- tary hero to offset the great popularity of Gen- eral Taylor, but this movement, of course, re- sulted in a flat failure. Cass was badly beaten, even in Cass County, that had been named for him, he there receiving 724 votes to 761 for Taylor.
VIGOROUS CAMPAIGN IN 184S.
The presidential campaign of 1848 was vigor- ously conducted. There were but two papers then published in the county, the Gazette, of Beardstown, and the Observer, of Virginia, the former a Whig organ, and the latter a Demo- cratic one. Sylvester Emmons conducted the Gazette, and, being a very able writer, made an irresistible onslaught on General Cass and the Democratic measures, especially the tariff. The greater number of the county officers elected in Cass County that fall were of the Whig party. Richard S. Thomas, a distinguished resident of Virginia, was elected to the General Assembly, being the first representative of the new district formed under the new constitution, comprising Cass and Menard counties. Thomas L. Harris, a Democrat, residing at Petersburg, beat Stephen T. Logan, a Whig and an able lawyer, for Congress by a majority of six in Cass County. At that same election, Jesse Crews, of Oregon Precinct, was elected coroner on the Whig ticket, without opposition. He was the father of Thomas M., John and Jess Crews of Oregon Precinct, and grandfather of Charles Crews, who, as a young man, clerked for W. B. Payne in the dry goods store on the south side of the public square, in Virginia, and is now a wealthy merchant of Pueblo, Colo. James Shaw was elected county judge, being the first under the new arrangement provided in the constitution of 1848, and he was succeeded by Jolin A. Arenz,
also a Whig, in 1852. Judge Arenz was a brother of Francis Arenz, born in Blankenburg, Province of the Rhine, Prussia, October 28, 1810. He was a highly educated man, a graduate of the seminary at Bruhl, near Cologne, and came to America in 1835, locating at Beardstown. He first engaged with his brother, Francis A. Arenz, subsequently in various lines of business, and held office as justice of the peace, notary public and mayor of Beardstown. During the cam- paign of 1844 he lived at Springfield, Ill., and conducted a newspaper in the German language, in the interest of Henry Clay for the presidency. Judge Arenz was returned to the county judge- ship in 1865, having in March of that year been admitted to the bar as an attorney-at-law. He lived to be eighty-seven years and ten months old, and died at his home in Beardstown, highly respected by men of every party and faith.
Political events crowded on rapidly. The question of slavery forged to the front, precipi- tated by the efforts of California to be admitted as a free state in 1850, and also by the propo- sition to create two new territories out of the acquisitioned land resulting from the war with Mexico. The compromise measure presented by Clay, and called by its opponents in derision the "Omnibus Bill," which provided that California should be admitted as a free state; that the new territories of Utah and New Mexico should be formed without any provision concerning slavery ; that $10,000,000 should be paid to Texas to yield its claim to New Mexico ; that the slave trade should be abolished in the District of Columbia, and that a fugitive slave law should be enacted, was, after bitter debate, finally adopted. The anti-slavery party would not ac- cept the compromise and began to form a new political party to which they invited all anti- slavery voters. The Democrats and Whigs in their party assembly each declared they stood by the compromise, and selected their candidates for the presidency for the campaign of 1852. The Democrats presented Franklin Pierce, and the Whigs, Gen. W. S. Scott. while the Free Soilers nominated John P. Hale of New Hamp- shire. The election was practically one-sided, Pierce carrying all but four of the states, and the Whig party disappeared forever from the political arena.
A STRINGENT LIQUOR LAW.
The voters of Cass County had been as much and as deeply interested as were the people of
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, VIRGINIA
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, VIRGINIA
CHRISTIAN CHURCH, VIRGINIA
CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN SEMINARY Later Union College, Virginia, Built in 1853-54, Taken Down in 1893
LIPPINCOTT MEMORIAL HALL
Erected by the Inmates of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home in memory of General Charles E. Lippincott and wife of Chandlerville, the First Governor and Matron of the Home.
CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, VIRGINIA Now used as the Women's Club Room
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
any section of the country ; they had ably de- bated every phase and element of the compro- mise, at the crossroads store and upon the street corners, and in every convenient and incon- venient place ; and each side had carried off the trophies of victory, and were now willing to lay the matter aside and devote their atten- tion to matters of more local concern. Rev. Cyrus Wright, a "regular" Baptist preacher, had been elected to represent the two counties of the Twenty-fifth district, Cass and Menard, in the Eighteenth General Assembly. The pre- vious legislature, in which Cass County did not have a local representative, had passed a strin- gent liquor law, prohibiting the sale of liquor in less quantities than one quart. The Eighteenth assembly repealed the law, the Rev. Mr. Wright voting for the repeal, he having in the pre-election campaign warned his constit- uents that he would so vote. It is affirmed that he said, though, that while he was in favor of the repeal of the law, he did not see why, if a person wanted liquor at all, he should want less than a quart. That legislature also passed the famous Black laws, and two other important acts, one for the incorporation of the State Agricultural Society, and one providing for the election of a state superintendent of public instruction. That legislature in the senate was composed of twenty Democrats and five Whigs ; in the house, fifty-nine Democrats, sixteen Whigs and one Free Soiler. Hon. Stephen A. Douglas was re-elected to the United States Senate. He had no sooner been apprised of his election than lie sprung upon an unsuspecting public his "Kansas-Nebraska Bill," which, by the doctrine it embodied upon the slavery ques- tion, and which Mr. Douglas denominated "squatter sovereignty," abolished the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the more recent com- promise of 1850. The anti-slavery people had peacefully retired at night resting in the belief that slavery had been placed, by the last com- promise, where it was in the course of ultimate extinction, and arose to find that the senator from Illinois, described by an able Democratic writer of the time as the "most consummate demagogue of the age," had, by the introduction of his wholly uncalled for measure, shattered all their hopes of peace and quiet over this most irritating and dangerous question; and had again aroused the people from one end of the country to the other to the highest pitch of excitement. Senator Douglas had many staunch
personal friends in Cass County, but a number of them parted from him politically on this question, while others stood by him loyally. The bill was debated with energy and great rancor, both in and out of Congress, and was delayed for several months before it came up for final action. In the meantime the people of Cass County had troubles of their own. Repre- sentative Wright had secured the passage of an act for the submission of a vote upon the ques- tion of the removal of the county seat from Beardstown to Virginia, at an election to be held the first Monday of November, 1853. The vote was taken as provided, and resulted in favor of leaving the county seat at Beardstown, by a very decided majority.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL.
On May 30, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill reached a final vote in the national Congress, and was passed, and the "irrepressible conflict" was on. More than forty Democrats from the North defied party discipline and voted against the bill. Senator Douglas by his masterly intel- lect and great force of character had won the sobriquet of "Little Giant," and Samson-like, he had thrown open flood-gates which he could not close. He came home to Illinois to defend his position, which was apparently defenseless ; the people of Chicago practically denied him a hearing. He traveled over the state, speaking in every congressional district, and then it was that Abraham Lincoln, who had been in retire- ment politically, since his return from Congress, was now called out to discuss the all-absorbing question. The campaign that fall was but the forerunner of the great debate which occurred two years later.
Cass County had no representative in the General Assembly which convened in January of 1855, the nomination in this district having gone to Menard County, which selected S. D. Masters, an anti-Nebraska Democrat. The un- popularity of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was evidenced by the fact that the legislature, which at the previous session was more than two- thirds Democratic, now was in control of the anti-slavery forces, and succeeded in electing Hon. Lyman Trumbull, an anti-Nebraska Demo- crat, to the United States Senate. The next year the Republican party was organized and nominated a full state ticket, which was suc- cessful at the polls in November, but its candi-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
date for the presidency was defeated by James Buchanan, the Democratic candidate. Dr. Samuel Christy, of Lancaster Precinct, Cass County, was elected to the General Assembly. The legislature convened January 5, 1857, and adjonrned February 19, 1857. Although the state administration was Republican, with Gov. W. H. Bissell at its head, the legislature was Democratic in both branches. Dr. Christy was a Democrat of the most pronounced type, and was an active member of the assembly. During the short session he secured the passage of bills in which Cass Connty was directly interested, as follows :
To extend the jurisdiction of jnstices of the peace and police magistrates in Cass County ; to incorporate the Virginia Cemetery in Cass Connty ; to amend the charter of the upper and lower Mississippi Railroad Company; to amend the act to construct a railroad from Jack- sonville, in Morgan County, to La Salle, in La Salle County ; to incorporate the Virginia Fe- male Seminary of Providence Presbyterian Church of Cass County ; to incorporate the Cass County Fair Ground Association; for the re- location of the connty seat of Cass County ; to incorporate the town of Virginia, in Cass County.
PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY.
Dr. Christy was born at Greenville, Mercer County, Pa., May 6, 1813. He secured such an education as he could in the country schools of his native county, and when he arrived at man- hood, began to teach in the schools in the coun- try regions. He later attended Jefferson Col- lege, Philadelphia, Pa., as a medical student, and received a diploma from that institution in the spring of 1836. He settled at Lexington, Mo., in 183S, but remained there but a few years, when he removed to Fulton County, Ill., and practiced his profession for about nine years. In 1849 he came to Beardstown and bought a drug store, but in 1851, tiring of the confinement, he pur- chased a farm. in the eastern part of Cass County, to which place he moved in 1852. It was the farm for many years known as the William Mains farm, about one mile east of the hamlet of Philadelphia, and was then about the center of Lancaster Precinct. There the Doctor acquired a fairly good practice, and might have made an exceptional success of his profession, had he not branched off into state politics. The
sum total of his success in the latter line was one term in the legislature. Dr. Christy was a strong man physically and mentally, and a fairly good physician, but his unnecessary es- pousal of the southern canse and his disloyal utterances so estranged him from his neigh- bors, who had always held him in high esteem as a man and physician, that at the close of the Civil war, he found the neighborhood no longer congenial, and having tired of the drudg- ery of the practice of a country physician. he resolved to remove to Iowa, purchase a farm and abandon the medical profession. This he did, selling his Cass County farm to William Mains, and removing with his family in the fall of 1865. to Mills Connty, Iowa, where he purchased a farm and followed agriculture. He lived there until the morning of his seventy- fourth birthday, May 6, 1SS7, when he expired very suddenly.
As 1857 was an off year in national and state politics, and all other excitements having been allayed. the people of Cass County again in- dulged in the interesting pastime of holding a county seat election. The vote this year was taken at an election held for this purpose on the Tuesday after the first Monday of Novem- ber, 1857. There was also submitted to the voters that year, two other propositions, one, which was voted upon in August, was whether or not the county should subscribe for $50.000 of bonds of the Keokuk & Warsaw Railroad Company, and the other, which was voted upon in November, was as to whether or not the county should adopt township organization. The result of the vote was the defeat of all three propositions, Beardstown still retaining the county seat. The election also disclosed the most wonderful increase in population in the town of Beardstown ever known in any town, village or city. The entire vote of the county one year previously, at the presidential election, was but 1665, while the vote of Beards- town on the question of the removal of the county seat at this special election was nearly double what it was the year previous. This naturally led to charges of fraud, but no one saw fit to contest the election.
NOMINATION OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.
The Whigs of Cass County had nearly all gone into the new Republican party and were eagerly watching the movements of the leaders
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as they lined up for the campaign of that year, when a legislature was to be elected which should return a United States senator to suc- ceed Senator Douglas. Cass County had no can- didate for the assembly on either ticket, but each party had a full county ticket. Douglas and Lincoln were each nominated in conven- tion of their respective parties as candidates for the United States senate, although there could be, under the law at that time, no direct vote for the candidates for senator. Each candidate had made a number of speeches in various parts of the state, and a series of joint debates had' been arranged to begin at Ottawa. In the in- terim, each candidate had his time to himself to speak at such points as he or his political managers might think most important. Cass County was not favored with one of the joint debates, but it had the next thing to it; both candidates spoke in the county before the first joint debate. Beardstown was, in 1858, the most important point in the county, and was also a leading business locality for a large terri- tory, railroads being few in number in the coun- try, and there were none in Cass County. Its situation on the river, making it easily acces- sible by steamer, was a considerable factor in determining its prominence. Both Mr. Lincoln and Senator Douglas concluded to hold meet- ings at Beardstown. The date selected by the Douglas party was August 11, 1858, and August 12, 1858, by the Republicans. There is no doubt that both these meetings were great successes ; that they were attended by thousands of people, for by that time the greatest excite- ment had been worked up; the whole United States was looking on and the metropolitan newspapers were giving considerable attention and space to the coming debates.
INTERESTING DETAILS.
Concerning the meetings articles appeared in the Springfield, Ill., papers, the Register and the Journal, but, being partisan, each praised the one meeting and belittled the other. The speeches of neither Lincoln nor Douglas are found in either paper. The Register, speaking of the Douglas meeting, says there were 5,000 people present; that it was one of the largest and most enthusiastic meetings ever held in central Illinois ; that hundreds and thousands came from the neighboring counties; and it meant that at the November election the Demo-
crats would carry the county by at least 500 majority. The meeting was covered by a re- porter who was evidently an expert, one who was following Douglas in the interests of the Democratic party. He says, in his report, that after noon the delegation came in from Vir- ginia, and with it were two wagons joined to- gether filled with young ladies dressed in white representing the States of the Union; that one of the banners carried by the Virginia delega- tion had a picture of a lion standing squarely on four feet, with head up proudly, and the left hind foot reaching back and pressing to the ground the squirming form of a mangy cur. In speaking of the Lincoln meeting, which occurred the following day, a very contemptuous attitude is seen, characterizing it as a flat failure, and a very insignificant crowd, and hardly worthy of any consideration. On the other hand, the Sangamon Journal speaks of the Lincoln meeting as a very enthusiastic gathering at which 3,000 people were present, and states that Mr. Lincoln came in from Naples and Meredosia on the steamer, Sam Gatty; that there was a great parade headed by two military companies of Beardstown, the "Independents," and the "City Guards," that J. McClean was marshal of the day. Mr. Lincoln and the committee stopped at the National Hotel, and after dinner came the speaking at the park. On the speaker's stand were Dr. Pothicary, William Cole. Jacob Bergen, Edward Collins, Horace Billings, William Chase, E. C. Sacket and Charles Rich. Mr. Rich in- troduced Mr. Lincoln, as he was a representative man, a member of the large mercantile firm of Rich, Chase & Co., of Beardstown. The paper further says Mr. Lincoln made an able and vig- orous speech which was received with great enthusiasm. In speaking of the Douglas meet- ing, the Journal says it was a failure; that one of the wagons in the parade broke down and everybody became disgusted ; that there was little or no enthusiasm except that produced by the liquor dealt out. It further says that Douglas was greatly disgruntled and disap- pointed, and that he had to seek his boat on foot and alone when he left the next morning. While at Beardstown, Mr. Lincoln was induced to have a photograph made. Felix Kesler was the photographer, and made the negative. A reproduction of that picture appears on an- other page of this work, and it is very interest- ing to this section historically from the fact that it was taken in Cass County. The cam-
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