History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches, Part 8

Author: Brink, W.R. & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Edwardsville, Ill. : W. R. Brink & co.
Number of Pages: 698

USA > Illinois > Madison County > History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches > Part 8

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THE "COMPACT OF 1787."

In 1682 Illinois became a possession of the French crown, a dependency of Canada, and a part of Louisiana. In 1765 the English flag was run up on old Fort Chartres, and

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

Illinois was counted among the treasures of Great Britain. In 1779 it was taken from the English by Col. George Rogers Clark : this man was resolute in nature, wise in coun- cil, prudent in policy, bold in action, and heroic in danger. Few men who have figured in the early history of America are more deserving than he. Nothing short of first-class ability could have rescued " Vincins " and all Illinois from the English, and it is not possible to over-estimate the in- fluence of this achievement upon the republic. In 1779, Illinois became a part of Virginia. It was soon known as Illinois county. In 1784 Virginia ceded all this territory to the general government to be cut into states, to be republi- can in form, with "the same right of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other states."

In 1787 it was the object of the wisest and ablest legisla- tion found in any merely human records. No man can study the secret history of The Compact of 1787 and not feel that Providence was guiding with sleepless eyes these unborn states. , The ordinance that on July 13, 1787, finally became the incorporating act, has a most marvelous history. Jefferson had vainly tried to secure a system of government for the north-western territory. He was an emancipationist of that day, and favored the exclusion of slavery from the territory Virginia had ceded to the general government, but the south voted him down as often as it came up. In 1787, as late as July 10, an organizing act without the anti-slavery clause was pending. This concession to the south was expected to carry it Congress was in session in New York city. O1 July 5, Rev. Dr. Manasseh Cutler, of Massachusetts, came into New York to lobby on the north- western territory. Everything seemed to fall into his hands. Events were ripe : the state of the public credit, the growing of southern prejudice, the basis of his mission, his personal character, all combined to complete one of those sudden and marvelous revolutions of public sentiment that once in five or ten centuries are seen to sweep over a country like the breath of the Almighty. Cutler was a remarkable man; a graduate of Yale, he had studied and taken degrees in the three learned professions, law, divinity and medicine, Har- vard had given him his A. M., and Yale had honored herself by adding his D. D. He had thus America's best literary indorsement. He had published a scientific examination of the plants of New England. His name stood second only to that of Franklin as a scientist in America. He was a courtly gentleman of the old style, a man of commanding presence, and of inviting face. The southern members were captivated by his genial manners, rare and profound abilities. He came representing a company that desired to purchase a tract of land now included in Ohio, for the purpose of plant- ing a colony. Government money was worth eighteen cents on the dollar. This Massachusetts company had collected enough to purchase 1,500,000 acres of land. Other specu- lators in New York made Dr. Cutler their agent; on the 12th he represented a demand for 5,500,000 acres. This would reduce the national debt. Jefferson and Virginia were regarded as authority concerning the land Virginia had just ceded. Jefferson's policy wanted to provide for the public credit, and this was a good opportunity to do somc-

thing. Massachusetts then owned the territory of Maine, which she was crowding on the market. She was opposed to opening the north-western region. This fired the zeal of Virginia. The South caught the inspiration, and all exalted Dr. Cutler. The English Minister invited him to dine with some of the Southern gentlemen. He was the centre of in- terest ; the entire South rallied around him. Massachusetts could not vote against him, because many of the constituents of her members were interested personally in the western speculation ; thus Cutler, making friends with the south, and doubtless using all the arts of the lobby, was enabled to command the situation. True to deeper conviction, he dictated one of the most compact and finished documents of wise statesmanship that ever adorned any human law book ; he borrowed from Jefferson the term " Articles of Compact," which preceding the federal constitution, rose into the most sacred character. He then followed very closely the constitu- tion of Massachusetts, adopted three years before,-its most marked points were :

1st. The exclusion of slavery from the territory forever. 2d. Provision for public schools, giving one township for a seminary, and every section numbered 16 in each town- ship; that is, one thirty-sixth of all the land for public schools.

3d. A provision prohibiting the adoption of any consti- tution, or the enactment of any law that should nullify pre-existing contracts.

Be it forever remembered that this compact declared that " Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and means of education shall always be encouraged." Dr. Cutler planted himself on this platform and would not yield. Giving his unqualified declaration that it was that or nothing -- that unless they could make the land desirable they did not want it-he took his horse and gig and started for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. On July 13, 1787, the bill was put upon its passage, and was unanimously adopted, every Southern member voting for it, and only one man, Mr. Yates of New York, voting against it, but as the States voted as States, Yates lost his vote, and the compact was put beyond repeal. Then the great States of Ohio, In- diana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin-a vast empire, the heart of the great valley-were consecrated to freedom, intelligence, and honesty. In the light of these ninety-five years, it is evident to all that this act was the salvation of the republic and the destruction of slavery. Soon the south saw their great blunder, and tried to repeal the compact. In 1803 Congress referred it to a committee, of which John Randolph was chairman. He reported that this ordinance was a compact, and opposed repeal. Thus it stood a rock in the way of the on-rushing sea of slavery. With all this timely aid it was, after all, a most desperate and protracted struggle to keep the soil of Illinois sacred to freedom. It was the natural battle field for the irrepressible conflict. In the southern end of the State slavery preceded the compact. It existed among the old French settlers, and was hard to eradicate. The southern part of the State was settled from the slave States; and this population brought their laws,

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

customs, and institutions with them. A stream of popula- tion from the North poured into the northern part of the State These sections misunderstood and hated each other perfectly. The Southerners regarded the Yankees as a skin- ning, trieky, penurious race of peddlers, filling the country with tinware, brass clocks, and wooden nutmegs. , The Northerner thought of the Southerner as a lean, lank, lazy creature, burrowing in a hut, and rioting in whisky, dirt and ignorance. These causes aided in making the struggle long and bitter. So strong was the sympathy with slavery that in spite of the ordinance of 1787, and in spite of the decd of cession, it was determined to allow the old French settlers to retain their slaves. Planters from the slave States might bring their slaves, if they would give them a chance to choose freedom, or years of service and bondage for their children till they should become thirty years of age. If they chose freedom they must leave the State in sixty days or be sold as fugitives. Servants were whipped for offences for which white men are fined ; each lash paid forty cents of the fine. A negro ten miles from home without a pass was whipped. These famous laws were imported from the slave States, just as they imported laws for the inspec- tion of flax and wool when there was neither in the State. These black laws are now wiped out. A vigorous effort was made to protect slavery in the State Constitution of 1818 ; it barely failed. It was renewed in 1826, when a convention was asked to make a new constitution. After a hard fight the convention was defeated ; but slaves did not disappear from the census of the State until 1850. There were mobs and murders in the interest of slavery. Lovejoy was added to the list of martyrs-a sort of first fruits of that long line of immortal heroes who saw freedom as the one supreme desire of their souls, and were so enamored of her that they pre- ferred to die rather than survive her.

LAND TENURES.

The early French settlers held the possession of their land in common. A tract of land was fixed upon for a Common Field, in which all the inhabitants were interested.

Besides the Common Field, another tract of land was laid off on the Commons. All the villagers had free access to this as a place of pasturage for their stock. From this they also drew their supply of fuel.

Individual grants were likewise made. Under the French system, the lands were granted without any equivalent con- sideration in the way of money, the individuals satisfying the authorities that the lands were wanted for actual settle- ment, or for a purpose likely to benefit the community. The first grant of land, which is preserved, is that made to Charles Danie, May 10th, 1722. The French grants at Kaskaskia extended from river to river, and at other places in the Bot- tom they commonly extended from river to bluff. Grants of land were made for almost all the American Bottom, from the upper limits of the Common Field of St. Phillip's to the lower line of the Kaskaskia Common Field, a distance of nearly thirty miles.

The British commandants, who assumed the government on the cession of the territory by France, exercised the pri-

vilege of making grants, subject to the approval of his Ma- jesty, the King. Colonel Wilkins granted to some merchants of Philadelphia a magnificent domain of thirty thousand acres lying between the village of Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher, much of it already covered by French grants pre- viously made. For the better carrying out their plans, the British officers, and perhaps their grantees, destroyed, to some extent, the records of the ancient French grants at Kaskaskia, by which the regular claim of titles and convey- ances was partly broken. This British grant of thirty thousand acres, which had been assigned to John Edgar, was afterward patented hy Governor St. Clair to Edgar and John Murray St. Clair, the Governor's son, to whom Edgar had previously conveyed a moiety by decd. Although much fault was found with the transaction, a confirmation of the grant was secured from the United States government.

When Virginia ceded Illinois, it was stipulated that the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers, who had professed allegiance to Virginia, should have their titles confirmed to them. Congress afterwards authorized the Governor to confirm the possessions and titles of the French to their lands. In accordance with this agreement, Governor St. Clair, in 1790, issued a proclamation directing the inhabitants to exhibit their titles and claims of the lands which they held, in order to be confirmed in their possession. Where the instruments were found to be authentic, orders of survey were issued, the expense of which was borne by the parties who claimed ownership. The French inhabitants were in such poverty at this time that they were really una- ble to pay the expenses of the surveys, and a memorial signed by P. Gibault, the priest at Kaskaskia, and eighty- seven others, was presented to Governor St. Clair, praying him to petition Congress for relief in the matter. In 1791, Congress directed that four hundred acres of land should be granted to the head of every family which had made improve- ments in Illinois prior to the year 1788. Congress had also directed that a donation be given to each of the families then living at either of the villages of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, Fort Chartres, or St. Phillips. These were known as the "bead-right " claims.

At an carly date, speculation became active in the land claims of different kinds; bead-rights, improvement rights, militia right:, and fraudulent claims were produced in great numbers. The French claims were partly unconfirmed, owing to the poverty of that people, and these were forced on the market with the others. The official report of the commissioners at Kaskaskia, made in 1810, shows that eight hundred and ninety land claims were rejected as being ille- gal or fraudulent. Three hundred and seventy were reported as being supported by perjury, and a considerable number were forged. There are fourteen namcs given of persons, both English and French, who made it a regular business to furnish sworn certificates, professing an intimate knowledge, in every case, of the settlers who had made cer- tain improvements upon which claims were predicated and when and where they were located. A Frenchman, clerk of the parish of Prairie du Rocher, " without property and fond of liquor," after having given some two hundred depo-

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

sitions in favor of three land claimant speculators, " was induced, " in the language of the report, " either by compen- - sation, fear, or the impossibility of obtaining absolution on any other terms, to declare on oath that the said depositions were false, and that in giving them he had a regard for. something beyond the truth."

The report of the commissioners raiscd many doubts in regard to the validity and propriety of a number of confir- mations by the Governors, and much dissatisfaction among the claimants ; and in consequence, Congress in 1812, passed an act for the revision of these land claims in the Kaskaskia district. The commissioners under this law were Michael Jones, John Caldwell, and Thomas Sloo. Facts damaging to persons who occupied positions of high respectability iu the community, were disclosed. They reported that the English claim of thirty thousand acres confirmed by Gover- nor St. Clair to John Edgar and the Governor's son, John Murray St. Clair, was founded in neither law or equity ; that the patent was issued after the Governor's power ceased to exist, and the claim ought not to be confirmed. Congress, however, confirmed it.

For a period of several years, emigration was considerably retarded by the delay in adjusting land titles. The act of Congress passed in 1813, granting the right of pre-emption to settlers, was influential in bringing the public lands into market. Emigrants poured into the country, and improve- ments were rapidly made.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE STATE.

In area the State has 55,410 square miles of territory. It is about 150 miles wide and 400 miles long, stretching in latitude from Maine to North Carolina. It embraces wide variety of climate. It is tempered on the north by the great inland, saltless, tideless sea, which helps the thermometer from either extreme. Being a table-land, from 690 to 1,600 feet above the level of the sea, one is prepared to find on the health maps, prepared by the general government, an almost clean and perfect record. In freedom from fever and mala- rial diseases and consumptions, the three deadly enemies of the American Saxon, Illinois, as a State, stands without a superior, She furnishes one of the essential conditions of a great people-sound bodies ; we suspect that this fact lies back of that old Delaware word, Illini, superior men. The great battles of history have been determinative; dynasties and destinies have been strategical battles, chiefly the question of position ; Thermopyle has been the war-cry of freemen for twenty-four centuries. It only tells how much there may be in position. All this advantage belong to Illinois. It is in the heart of the greatest valley in the world, the vast regiou between the mountains-a valley that could feed mankind for a thousand years. It is well on toward the centre of the continent. It is in the great temperate belt, in which have been found nearly all the aggressive civilizations of history. It has sixty-five miles of frontage on the head of Lake Michi- gan. With the Mississippi forming the western and south- ern boundary, with the Ohio running along the south-eastern line, with the Illinois river and Canal dividing the State diagonally from the lake to the Lower Mississippi, and with the Rock and Wabash rivers furnishing altogether 2,000

miles of water-front, connecting with, and running through, in all about 12,000 miles of navigable water. But this is not all. These waters are made most available by the fact that the lake and the State lie on the ridge running into the great valley from the east. Within cannon-shot of the lake the water runs away from the lake to the gulf. The lake now empties at both ends, one into the Atlantic and one into the Gulf of Mexico. The lake thus seems to hang over the land. This makes the dockage most serviceable; there are no steep banks to damage it. Both lake and river are made for use. The climate varies from Portland to Richmond. It favors every product of the continent including the tropics, with less than half a dozen exceptions. It produces every great nutriment of the world except bananas and rice. It is hardly too much to say that it is the most productive spot known to civilization. With the soil full of bread and the earth full of minerals; with an upper surface of food and an under layer of fuel; with perfect natural drainage, and abundant springs and streams and navigable rivers; half way between the forests of the North and the fruits of the South ; within a day's ride of the great deposits of iron, coal, copper, lead and zinc: containing and controlling the great grain, cattle, pork, and lumber markets of the world, it is not strange that Illinois has the advantage of position. This advantage has been supplemented by the character of the population. In the early days when Illinois was first admit- ted to the union, her population were chiefly from Kentucky and Virginia. But, in the conflict of ideas concerning sla- very, a strong tide of immigration came in from the East, and soon changed this composition. In 1880, her now native population were from colder soils. New York had furnished 143,290: Ohio gave 172,623: Pennsylvania 108,352: the entire South gave us only 216,734. In all her cities, and in all her German and Scandinavian and other foreign colonies, Illinois has only about one-fifth of her people of foreign birth.

PROGRESS OF DEVELOPMENT.

One of the greatest developments in the carly history of Illinois, is the Illinois and Michigan canal, connecting the Illinois and Mississippi rivers with the lakes. It was of the utmost importance to the State. It was recommended by Governor Bond, the first governor, in his first message. Two bright young engineers surveyed it, and estimated the cost at $600,000 or $700,000. It finally cost $8,000,000. In 1825, a law was passed to incorporate the canal company, but no stock was sold. In 1826, upon the solicitation of Daniel P. Cook, congress gave 800,000 acres of land on the line of the work. In 1828, another law-commissioner was appointed, and work commenced with new survey and new estimates. In 1834-35, George Farquar made an able report on the whole matter. This was, doubtless, the ablest report ever made to a western legislature, and it be- came the model for subsequent reports and action. From this the work went on until it was finished in 1848. It cost the State a large amount of money ; but it gave to the indus- tries of the State an impetus that pushed it up into the first rank of greatness. It was not built as a speculation. But it has paid into the Treasury of the State an average annual :,5

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINO.N.

nett sum of over 111,000. Pending the construction of the canal, the land and town-lot fever broke out in the state, in 1834-35. It took on the malignant type in Chicago, lifting the town up into a city. The disease spread over the entire State and adjoining States. It was epidemic. It cut up men's farins without regard to locality, and cut up the purses of the purchasers without regard to consequences. There was no lack of buyers ; speculators and money swarmed into the country. This distemper seized upon the Legislature in 1836-37, and left not one to tell the tale. They enacted a system of internal improvement without a parallel in the grandeur of its conception. They ordered the construction of 1,300 miles of railroad, erossing the State in all directions. This was surpassed by the river and canal improvements. There were a few counties not touched by either railroad or river or canal, and those were to be comforted and compen- sated by the free distribution of $200,000 among them. To inflate this balloon beyond credence it was ordered that work should be commenced on both ends of each of these railroads and rivers, and at each river-crossing, all at the same time. The appropriations for the vast improvements were over $12,000,000, and commissioners were appointed to borrow money on the credit of the State. Remember that all this was in the early days of railroading, when railroads were luxu- ries ; that the State had whole counties with scarcely a cabin, and that the population of the State was less than 400,000, and you can form some idea of the vigor with which these brave men undertook the work of making a great State. In the light of history it appears that this was only a premature throb of the power that actually slumbered in the soil of the State. It was Hercules in the eradle. At this juncture the State bank loaned its funds largely to Godfrey Gilman & Co., and other leading houses for the purpose of drawing trade from St. Louis to Alton. Soon they failed, and took down the bank with them. In 1840, all hope seemed gone. A population of 480.000 were load- ed with a debt of $14,000,000. It had only six small cities, really only towns, namely : Chicago, Alton, Springfield, Quincy, Galena and Nauvoo. This debt was to be cared for when there was not a dollar in the treasury, and when the State had borrowed itself out of all credit, and when there was not good money enough in the hands of all the people to pay the interest of the debt for a single year. Yet in the presence of all these difficulties the young State steadily refused to repudiate. Gov. Ford took hold of the problem and solved it, bringing the State through in triumph. Having touched lightly upon some of the most distinctive points in the history of Illinois, let us next briefly consider the

MATERIAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE.

It is substantially a garden four hundred miles long and one hundred and fifty wide. Its soil is chiefly a black sandy loam, varying from six inches to six feet thick. On the American Bottoms it has been cultivated for over one hun- dred and fifty years without renewal. About the old French towns it has yielded corn for a century and a half without rest or help. It produces nearly everything green in the tem- perate and tropical zones ; she leads any of the other States

in the number of acres actually under plow. Her products from 25,000,000 acresare incalculable. Her mineral wealth is scarcely second to her agricultural power. She has coal, iron, lead, copper, zinc, many varieties of building stone, fire clay, cuma clay, common brick and tile clay, sands of all kinds, gravel, mineral paint, everything needed for a high civilization. Left to herself, she has the elements of all greatness. The single item of coal is too vast for an appreciative handling in figures. We can handle itin gene- ral terms, like algebraieal signs, but long before we get up into the millions and billions, the human mind drops down from comprehension to mere symbolic apprehension. Nearly four-fifths of the entire State is underlaid with a deposit of coal more than forty feet thiek on the average, including all strata (now estimated by recent surveys, at seventy feet thick). You can get some idea of its amount, as you do of the amount of the national debt. There it is, 41,000 square miles, one vast mine into which you could bury scores of European and ancient empires, and have room enough all round to work without knowing that they had been sepulchered there. Put this vast coal-bed down by the other great coal deposits of the world, and its importance becomes manifest. Great Britain, has 12,000 square miles of coal; Spain 3,000; France 1,719; Belgium 578; Illi- nois about twice as many square miles as all combined. Virginia has 20,000 square miles; Pennsylvania, 16,000; Ohio, 12,000 ; Illinois has 31,000 square miles ; one-seventh of all the known coal on this continent is in Illinois.

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History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches, Part 8

Author: Brink, W.R. & Co Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Edwardsville, Ill. : W. R. Brink & co. Number of Pages: 698

Author: Brink, W.R. & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Edwardsville, Ill. : W. R. Brink & co.
Number of Pages: 698