History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 167

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340

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On May 6, 1821, Mr. Cook married Miss Julia C., the eldest daughter of Governor Ninian Edwards, an accomplished, bean- tiful and loveable woman. One child. John Cook, was born to them, June 12, 1525, in the town of Belleville, St. Clair County. He was afterwards a prominent citizen of Springfield, Sheriff of the county, member of the Legislature, and mayor of the city.

Although Mr. Cook had already made his mark in Congress, among other measures having introduced a bill giving actual set- tlers on public land the rights of pre-emptinn. it was reserved for him, during the session of the Eighteenth Congress to commence a work which he lived to see completed, and which was the crown- ing success of a successful public career. Relving upon the oppo. sition which had been aroused because of Mr. Cook's course on the Missouri question, Mr. Mclean led the opposition against his political rival at the general election of 1322. He was defeated by nearly one thousand votes. It was at this session of Congress that. with the earnestness and faithfulness which marked all his efforts, Mr. Cook urged upon that hody the justice of granting such aid to the State of Illinois as would insure the construction of the Illinois & Michigan Canal.

Says William 11. Brown, in his memoir : " In 1822 this sub- ject was brought directly before Congress. Mr. Cook labored to

secure such aid from the General Government as would enable the state to prosecute this important work. He asked for bread and received a stone. The utmost extension of congressional liber- ality was a grant of a strip of land, ninety feet wide, through the public domain, from the Illinois River to the lake ; and lest, by any means, the Congress of the United States, after such a munifi- cent grant, should be further committed, a saving proviso was added, that the United States should in no wise become liable for any expense incurred by the State 'in surveying or opening said canal.' In the intervening years, from 1822 to 1827, Mr. Cook urged this measure in Congress as a national work, in which other States were as directly interested as his own, and affording to the Government in time of war, great facilities in the movement of troops and transportation of stores. The result of his labors was the passage of the act of March, 1827 (the last session of his congressional career), granting, in fee simple, to the State, and without any reser- vation, the alternate five sections upon each side of the canal, amounting to more than three hundred thousand acres of land, and embracing the site of the city of Chicago. This act was worthy of a Congress representing a great Nation, and is wonder- fully in contrast with that of 1822. But its greater and more en- during value was the precedent for future grants, embracing that for railroad purposes, the effect of which we now feel in the en- hancement of the value of property, the increase of business and the general prosperity of the State."

In 1823-24 the State was greatly agitated over the attempt made by the pro-slavery members of the Legislature to have a con- vention called for the adoption of a new Constitution. legalizing the " institution " within the limits of the commonwealth. Although the proposition was carried by the Legislature, when submitted to the people in 1824 the measure was rejected by IS34 majority, out of a vote of 11,764. The vote of Fulton County, which then comprised Cook, was 5 for and 60 against the resolution for the calling of the convention. Daniel P. Cook, with such men as Governor Coles, Judge Pope, Governor Edwards. William H. Brown, and Samuel D. Lockwood, was found in the front ranks, faithfully fighting the abomination.

Mr. Cook's competitor for Congress in 1824 was ex-Governor Bond, and as it was a close " presidential year " when the election of the National Executive might be thrown into the House of Representatives and even be decided by Illinois, the contest was exciting. Governor Bond was, however, defeated by over three thousand majority. The President was chosen in the House of Representatives, and Mr. Cook cast the vote of the State of Illi- nois for John Quincy Adams. It is not necessary to vindicate the young congressman from the charge of " broken faith with his con- stituents." which was brought against him by his political oppo- nents and the warm friends of Mr. Adams' presidential rivals. For an explanation of the pledge he made, and how he kept it, the reader is referred to the best known authority on this subject .* Mr. Cook was a candidate for re-election in 1826, but was defeated by General Joseph Duncan, a resident of Jackson County, and, al- though still young, a Lieutenant of the War of 1812 and a State legislator of some experience. He went into the canvass with ardor, and his opponent's friends were so confident of their accus- tomed success that they did not put forth counter efforts. Others were anxious that Mr. Cook should become a candidate for the Senate. He was defeated by a majority of 641. But his term of serv- ice hoth as a congressman and as a man, was gradually approaching its close. The arduous duties which fell upon his shoulders during the session of 1826-27 were too much for his enfeebled constitu- tion, and during the last days of his life at Wash ngton he was confined to his bed. In the spring of 1827, by the advice of his physician, he departed for Cuba, in a vain search for lost health and strength. Early in the month of June. however, he returned to the home of Governor Edwards at Belleville. He gradually went into a consumptive's decline, and, while on a visit to his father, in his native place in Kentucky, he died, October 16. 1827. Thus there passed away from earth, one of those rare, small, frail men of body, who seem inspired from the first with the thought that they must exert their influences and do their work with all their might before that time comes upon them so quickly in which no man can labor. Snch men are given to the world as one of its powers of progress, and must be accounted by the Higher Power. as necessary to its onward march, as those men of both physical and intellectual might who, through the ceaseless perseverance of a long life, are accorded the privilege of working out to their con- clusion some of their dearest plans for the public good.

The next election of which there is a reliable account was purely local, it being for the election of Justice of the Peace and Constable. It was held July 24, 1830, at the house of James Kinzie, on the West

. History of things and Life of Ninlan Edwards, by his son, Mulan W. Edwards.

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Side; fifty-six voters turned out. John S. C. Hogan, afterward Postmaster, was the successful candidate for Justice over Archibald Clybourne. It was probably quite an exciting election, as a much larger vote was polled than at the State election held only about a week afterward.

At the State election held August 2, 1830, thirty- two voters exercised their privileges at the Chicago pre- cinct, twenty-two of whom supported the somewhat celebrated John Reynolds for Governor. Reynolds was a Jackson Democrat, and was elected by a triumph- ant majority. Chicago, unanimously Whig in 1826, was now strongly democratic-two to one-Jackson being the President. This election was held at the house of James Kinzie, on the West Side. . The judges of elec- tion were: Russel E. Heacock, J. B Beaubien, and James Kinzie; the clerks were, Madore B. Beaubien and Rev. Jesse Walker.

Prior to the organization of Cook County, in 1831, there was not a sufficient number of voters in Chicago, or in fact in all the region roundabout, to make them even a disturbing element in the politics of the State. What few there were seem to have had no political party predilections whatever, further than to vote with the dominant party, and for several years thereafter party lines were not strictly drawn in the local elections which occurred. In the congressional election held in August, 1832, the county, then embracing the present counties of Lake. McHenry, Du Page and Will, there were cast at the three precincts, one hundred and four- teen votes, of which number ninety-four were for the Democratic candidate for Congress, Joseph Duncan, of Jacksonville), who was elected. His competitors were Jonathan H. Pugh, Whig, who received nineteen votes, and Archibald Clybourne, who received one vote.

State and county officers were elected at the same time, which show more local or personal than political preference. The votes were: For State Senator-James M. Strode (Galena), eighty-one votes ; James W. Ster- enson (Galena), twenty-six votes ; J. M. Gay, four votes. For State Representative-Benjamin Mills 'Galena), one hundred and ten votes. For Sheriff-Stephen Forbes (Chicago), one hundred and six votes; James Kinzie (Chicago`, two votes. For Coroner, Elijah Wentworth, Jr. Chicago', one hundred and four votes. The votes of the different precincts, Chicago, Hickory Creek, and DuPage, are not separately given in the list* from which the above returns are taken. Chicago had been entirely depopulated by a cholera panic in July, and it is not probable that any large part of the vote was cast at that precinct. This was the first general election after the organization of Cook County.t

So far as appears from the votes cast at presidential and congressional elections after 1832, the returns of which will be given further on, Chicago and Cook County seem to have been unswervingly Democratic for the succeeding twenty-two years, during which time, with but a few exceptions when the councils of the party were divided (1840 and 1848), it did not fail to give a majority for the Democratic candidate, whoever he might be, and regardless of all local issues tending to swerve voters from party allegiance. It was not until it had seen buried in oblivion the party which had been its ancient and worthy foe, and its own party disintegra- tions throughout the nation had become apparent, pre- cipitated, although not caused, by the acts of one of

. See supplement to lecture of Hon. John Wentworth, Fergus's Historic Series, No. 8, p. 43.

t See corporate history of Chicago,f and fearly history elsewhere in this volume.

Chicago's most gifted and idolized citizens, that the Chicago Democracy knew defeat. The following elec- tion returns will show the strength of the opposing polit- ical parties at the periods designated:

1834-Gubernatorial election, August 4 (Cook County):

FOR GOVERNOR .- William Kinney (of Belleville . Whig, 201; Robert K. Mclaughlin of Vandalia , 10; Joseph Duncan (of Jacksonville), Democrat, 309; James Adams (of Springfield , 8-528.

1836 - Presidential election, November (Cook County). FOR PRESIDENT-Martin Van Buren, Demo- crat, 519 votes; William Henry Harrison, Whig, 524 votes.

1838-Congressional and gubernatorial election, August (Cook County). Congressman-Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat, 1,667 votes; John T. Stuart, Whig, 839 votes. Governor-Thomas Carlin, Democrat, 1,664 votes; Cyrus Edwards, Whig, 832 votes.

This was a most exciting campaign. The recent financial collapse, which had left business in a state of paralysis throughout the country, had been attributed largely to the financial policy of Jackson's and Van Buren's administrations, and the Whig party, with a vigor inspired by high hopes of riding into power on the waves of prevailing discontents, were contesting every election, thus preparing the way for the great presidential campaign of 1840. which resulted in a vic- tory so overwhelming as to endanger the victors by its completeness.

During this campaign Stephen A. Douglas, then a a young man of twenty-five years, made his first appear- ance in Chicago as a political orator. He had been in the State but five years, his home being first in Win- chester, a small town some fifteen miles from Jackson- ville, and later in Springfield. During this time he had taught school, completed his law studies, been admitted to the Bar, and by his marvelous powers fought himself to a prominent position among the oldest and ablest members of the Illinois Bar. At the age of twenty-two years he was elected by the Legislature as Attorney General of the State; when twenty-three years old he was a member of the Legislature; and a year later his talents received national recognition through his ap- pointment by President Van Buren to the office of Register of the Land Office at Springfield, Ill. In 1838 he received the Democratic nomination for Congress, and with the uncompromising pluck which characterized his whole life canvassed the whole district, holding joint discussions with his opponents or speaking alone, dur- ing every evening, except Sundays, for the five months preceding the election. It was at the close of this remarkable campaign that he spoke at Chicago. The meeting was held in the Saloon Building. August 4. The fame of the " Little Giant " had preceded him and the hall was packed with an eager crowd whose curios- ity to see and hear the young orator was little less than their interest in the exciting political issues he was to discuss. It is a matter of history that on his debut he took the entire crowd by storm. He was applauded to the echo, and a Whig, William I. May, who arose to reply, was hissed down and failed to get a hearing. For sixteen years thereafter Douglas led captive the Democ- racy of Chicago, and held their destinies in the hollow of his hand. The vote polled at the Congressional election was the largest ever at that time polled in the State, aggregating over 36,000 votes; so close was the contest that the result was not officially declared for several weeks, when the Whig candidate was declared elected by a majority of five votes only.

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1840-Presidential election, November 3 /Cook County). FOR PRESIDENT-Martin Van Buren, Demo- crat, 1,989 votes; William Henry Harrison, Whig, 1,034 votes. (Chicago) FOR PRESIDENT-Van Buren, 807. votes; Harrison, 622 votes.

1842-Gubernatorial election Cook County). FOR GOVERNOR, Joseph Duncan, Whig, 625 votes; Thomas Ford, Democrat, 1.328 votes; - Hunter, Abolitionist, 37 votes.

1842-Congressional election (Fourth District ). Giles Spring. Whig, 891 votes; John Wentworth, Dem- ocrat, 1,172 votes. Mr. Wentworth was re-elected in 1842, 1844, and 1846, serving four terms in Congress successively as a Democrat.

1844-Presidential election, November 4 (Cook County). FOR PRESIDENT-James K. Polk, Democrat, 2,027 votes; Henry Clay, Whig, 1, 117; James G. Birney, Abolitionist, 317. (Chicago) Polk, 136 votes; Clay, 850 votes; Birney, 209 votes.

1848. - Presidential election, November 7 (Cook County). FOR PRESIDENT-Martin Van Buren, Free- Soil Democrat, 2, 120 votes; Lewis Cass, Straight Dem- ocrat, 1,622 votes; Zachary Taylor, Whig, 1,708 votes. (Chicago) Van Buren, 1,543 votes; Cass, 1,016 votes; Taylor, 1,283 votes.

1850-Congressional election. Cook County'. For Congressman, R. S. Molony, Democrat, 2,863 votes; Churchill C. Coffing, Whig, 1,8So votes.

1852-Presidential election, November 3 Cook County.) FOR PRESIDENT-Franklin Pierce, Democrat, 3,767 votes; Winfield Scott, Whig, 2,089 votes; John P. Hale. Free-Soil, 793 votes. Chicago) Pierce, 2,835 votes; Scott, 1.765 votes; Hale, 424 votes.

1854-Congressional election Cook County,. James H. Woodworth, Free-Soil, 3,448 votes; Turner, Demo- crat, 1, 175 votes.

1856-Presidential election, November + 'Cook County). FOR PRESIDENT-John C. Fremont, Republi- can, 9,020 votes; James Buchanan, Democrat, 5,680 votes; Millard Fillmore, Whig, 342. Chicago) Fremont, 6,370 votes; Buchanan, 4,913 votes; Fillmore, 332 votes.

1856-Congressional election Cook County'. John F. Farnsworth, Republican, 8,993 votes; John Van Nort Wyke, Democrat, 5,572 votes.

1858-Congressional election Cook County ;. John F. Farnsworth, Republican, 10, 108 votes; Thomas Dyer, Douglas Democrat, 8,278 votes; Robert Blackwell, Ad- ministration Democrat, 305 votes.

1860-Presidential election, November 7 (Cook County). FOR PRESIDENT-Abraham Lincoln, Republi- can, 14,589 votes; Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat, 9,846 votes; John Bell. Straight Whig, 107 votes; John C. Breckenridge, Southern Democrat, S7 votes.

1860-Congressional election Cook County . Isaac N. Arnold, Republican, 14,663 votes; Augustus Har- rington, Douglas Democrat, 9,791 votes.

The returns of such important elections as have been before given are sufficient to indicate to the reader the political status of Chicago and Cook County through the period of the twenty-five years here in review. In 1836 Cook County gave Harrison, Whig, a majority of five votes in a total ballot of 1,041. His vote was largely increased by his being a Western man and in closer sympathy with the frontiersmen than was his Eastern political opponent, Van Buren. Two years after, in 1838, with no such disparity in the popularity of the opposing candidates, the Democrats carried the county by a majority of 828 in a total vote of 2,506; the Democrats outnumbering the Whigs, two to one. In

1840, when the enthusiasm of the hard-cider-Tippecanoe campaign swept the country like a prairie fire, both Cook County and Chicago stood rock-bound against the popular wave, and gave a majority for Van Buren, in spite of Harrison's personal popularity: the county 835. in a total vote of 3,023; the City of Chicago, 185, in a total vote of 1,429.

The Democratic ascendancy remained uninterrupted until 1848. In the presidential election of that year two Democratic candidates were in the field: Cass the regular nominee, and Van Buren, who had been nomin- ated by Northern Democrats, who took issue with their Southern brethren on the admission of Texas as a slave State. The Democratic forces thus being divided and demoralized, the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor, received a small majority over Cass, both in the city and county. The aggregate vote, however, of both wings, showed that the united Democracy still held the power at the ballot box in a ratio of two to one.

The election of 1850 showed the usual Democratic majority, as did the presidential election of 1852, the majority for Pierce, Democrat, being, the latter year, 646 over the combined vote of the Whigs for Scott' and the Free-Soilers for Hale' in the city. In the county the Democratic majority was 885.

Here the Democratic ascendency, which had been uninterrupted for almost a generation, ceased, and for as many years thereafter the party struggled in a minority, only fitfully broken by some local issue on which a fusion with other opponents of the Republican party brought a temporary or partial victory.

In 1854 the vote for a member of Congress gave to the Republican candidate a majority of 2,273 in a total vote of 4,623, the tables being completely turned, and the ascendency of the Republicans being now estab- lished on the former Democratic ratio of two to one. The reader can trace the subsequent history of political party power and weakness up to 1860 in the preced- ing pages. The further history of Chicago's career as a Republican stronghold will appear in future volumes.

The decline of Democratic power in Chicago was in a sense attributable to the same causes which destroyed its efficiency and strength as a National party, and in that sense need not here be discussed. The gradual decadence of the old Whig party, which for nearly fifty years had been in constant antagonism to the Demo- cratic party, would have left it undisputed master of the field, but for the evolution of a new party on the issue of slavery or no slavery in the Territorial domain of the Nation. The question of the abolition of slavery was not the basis on which the Republican party was founded, nor was the abhorrence in which the institu- tion was justly held by a large part of the Northern peo- ple sufficient to break old party ties or bring into exist- ence a party that could rule the destinies of the Republic. Until the stern necessities of war wrung from that cautious, wise and freedom-loving patriot, Abraham Lincoln, against the protests of many of his trusted advisers, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Republi- can party, although opposed to the extension of slavery and favoring its restriction to its existing territorial limits, had abjured all sympathy with the formerly de- cried but now glorified party known as abolitionists. Nevertheless, although their doctrines were repudiated openly, they were, from the beginning, a constant and ever increasing educational power, imbuing the popular heart with their own abhorrence for the cursed institu- tion itself, and preparing it for the great conflict which in good time was to come. It was precious seed they

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sowed as they " went forth weeping," and not a few of them lived "to come again rejoicing, bearing their sheaves with them."

The student of Illinois history is conversant with the early history of slavery as it had a bearing on the desti- nies of the State. He has read of the efforts, well nigh successful, which were made to legalize the institution in Illinois in 1824. As late as 1840, with a view to in- ducing Southern planters to settle in the State with their slaves, and to insure peace and harmony with the neighboring slave States, many openly advocated the introduction of slavery. Through all the various laws passed by the State Legislature had run a peculiar code which precluded the residence of free negroes in the State, except under conditions but little better than those of actual slavery. They were incompetent wit- nesses in any case where a white man was the plaintiff or defendant, and except they could show free papers were subject to arrest, imprisonment, and, after due advertisement, no master appearing, the negro so ar- rested was sold by auction for the costs of his arrest. The sale thus made placed him under as absolute con- trol of his new master as though he had been a born slave in the South. The same penalties were provided for insubordination or other offenses, including that of running away. as for slaves, and throughout the code "slaves " and "servants" colored were subject to the same penalties and restrictions.

Under this code of laws, modified, but not repealed until the War of the Rebellion was ended, free negroes had few rights which white men were bound to respect. Among the posthumous papers of the late Zebina East- man, who, at the time of his death was engaged on this volume, is an exhaustive history in manuscript, of the " Black Code of Illinois," which he in common with other early Abolitionists opposed for nearly half a cen- tury before they saw it obliterated. The papers are deposited with the Chicago Historical Society, pending their publication. Mr. Eastman thus sketches the end of class legislation against negroes in Illinois :

" After this there came upon the nation the storm of God's terrible swift judgments, in his thunder and his lightning, and things were not what they seemed before. What had been prayed for by timid women for a gener- ation and unheeded, to remove the curse of our apostacy from the honor of the State, was answered very sud- tlenly at length by the spontaneous action of stern and earnest men. The storm of the Rebellion was a revo- lution, the most complete ever falling over the fate of a race-to the colored people of the country, bond or free. If the slaves even had become free, real freedom should come to the colored people of Illinois, and their coming here should no longer be a 'High MMisdemeanor' as the statutes still declared it). There were whisper- ings that the Black Laws should be repealed. After the emancipation had been effected, John Jones, a mulatto well known in Chicago, a man free-born, vet who came under the ban of the law and filed his certifi- cate of freedom with the Chicago Historical Society. carried a petition through the streets of Chicago, asking for the repeal of these laws. He went to Springheld, backed by influential citizens, and engineered the enter- prise. Through his efforts the end came speedily. Through Senator Lansing of McHenry County, first moving early in the session of 1865, for the repeal of these laws, and the steady process of the course through the legal forms, we see, at last, as with a blow, four years after the breaking out of the Rebellion, every vestige of the Black Code swept from the statute book.

Therefore in the laws of 1865, there is the following enactment, with this title abreviated :

" An act to repeal Section 16, Division 3, Chapter 30, and Chapter 74, of the Revised Laws, etc."-and this is the immortal act :

"SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois by the General Assembly ; that Section 16, Division 3, Chapter 30, of the Revised Statutes of the State entitled 'Criminal Jurisprudence ; ' and Chapter 74 of said Revised Statutes, entitled 'Negroes and Mulattoes,' and an act of the General Assembly of this State approved, February 12, 1853, entitled . An act to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this State' be, and the same are hereby repealed ; also, Section 23. Chapter 40, Revised Statutes, entitled, ' Evidence and Deposition.'

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 167

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340