USA > Illinois > Edwards County > History of the English settlement in Edwards County, Illinois : founded in 1817 and 1818, by Morris Birkbeck and George Flower > Part 15
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ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUNTY.
appeal to the House; but the chair was supported by a majority of three. Here, it might be supposed, the ques- tion was finally decided, and would have been allowed to rest; but it proved otherwise. On the succeeding day, the vote confirming the speaker's decision was reversed, and the motion for reconsideration, made by one of the minor- ity, carried; and to extinguish the vote of the defaulter, and create a favorable one in the room of it, as no such vote could be found in the House, they had recourse to a proceeding, the most unjust and impudently tyrannical that ever, as I believe, disgraced the Legislature of a free country.
"By an arbitrary resolution, in direct violation of law, they expelled one of the representatives, who had been established in his seat, by the decision of the House, and introduced in his room a man favorable to their views, who had been declared, by the same decision, not to be a repre- sentative. Thus was Mr. Hansen illegally expelled from his seat in the Legislature, and Mr. Shaw illegally placed in. Having accomplished this, they brought forward the main question the third time, and carried it by the vote of this man, whom they created a member for the express purpose, at the close of the session."
Ford, in his history of Illinois, confirms this statement, but makes the tergiversation of the assembly more appar- ent. He says, at page 52: "When the Legislature assem- bled, it was found that the Senate contained the requisite two-thirds' majority; but in the House of Representatives, by deciding a contested election in favor of one of the can- didates, the slave-party would have one more than two-
205
HANSEN AND SHAW.
thirds; but by deciding in favor of the other, they would lack one vote of having that majority. These two candi- dates were John Shaw and Nicholas Hansen, who claimed to represent the county of Pike, which then included all the military tract and all the country north of the Illinois River, to the northern limits of the State. The leaders of the slave-party were anxious to elect Jesse B. Thomas to the United States Senate. Hansen would vote for him, but Shaw would not. Shaw would vote for the convention, but Hansen would not. The party had use for both of them, and they determined to use them both, one after the other. For this purpose, they first decided in favor of Hansen, admitted him to a seat, and with his vote elected their United States senator; and then, toward the close of the session, with mere brute force, and in the most bare- faced manner, they reconsidered their former vote, turned Hansen out of his seat, and decided in favor of Shaw, and with his vote carried their resolution for a convention."*
* In the account Mr. Flower has given of the celebrated contest between Shaw and Hansen, he has simply followed the accepted historical version. Gov. Reynolds and Gov. Ford are both mistaken when they state that Han- sen was admitted to a seat in the lower branch of the Legislature, in order to vote for Thomas, for U. S. senator, and was then put out in order to admit Shaw, for the purpose of having his vote for the convention resolution. Han- sen was the sitting-member whose seat was contested by Shaw. The contest was settled in the early part of the session, and without any reference what- ever either to the senatorial or convention question. The House decided that Hansen was entitled to his seat. It was only at the end of the session, and after Hansen had held his seat unchallenged for eleven weeks, that he was turned out, to put Shaw in so by his vote to carry the convention resolu- tion. The proceeding was lawless, revolutionary, and utterly disgraceful, and contributed largely to the defeat of the convention scheme before the people. [See "Sketch of Edward Coles and the Slavery Struggle in Illinois, in 1823-4, by E. B. Washburne, Honorary Member of the Chicago Histori- cal Society."]
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ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUNTY.
We had now no other recourse than to vote against a convention or become the accomplices of this base faction. We thought, at that time, that such a scene of base intrigue was never before exhibited under a representative government, as prevailed at Vandalia during that session. Some of the doings of other legislatures, and of Con- gress, have enlightened us since that time, and shown us that men are to be found as unscrupulous now as they were then. Small rewards were dealt out to small men. Larger douceurs were offered to larger interests. One thing, very well known, is, that the southerners offered to the northerners their support and votes in these terms: "If you will vote for our convention, we will vote for your canal." Whether the northmen were invulnerable, the . legislative record will best show. So the measure was carried in the legislature .*
Taking Edwards County, on the Wabash, which threw a decisive majority for no convention, following the same line of latitude westward, to where the Rev. Mr. Peck of Rock Spring, I think in St. Clair County, headed the no- convention ticket; then to Edwardsville, where Gov. Ninian Edwards did good battle for freedom, and on to Alton; here was presented the first line of batteries against the slavery - shock from the south. After the vote of the legislature, up to the time of election, the war waxed
* Mr. Flower is perhaps not entirely accurate in this statement. At this time the canal question could not have cut much of a figure. The first grant of land, for the construction of the Illinois-and-Michigan Canal, was not ob- tained until 1827. There was then no northern part of the State, as we now understand it. Sangamon and Pike were then the most northerly counties, though there were a few settlers in Fulton. All the counties, afterward par- ticularly interested in the canal, were established subsequent to 1822-3.
207
BIRKBECK'S ADDRESS.
warm. From our Settlement many communications were constantly issuing, generally in reply to the advocates of slavery from the south. The discussion took every form. The religious, the benevolent, the political, the expedient arguments were all used by our opponents, and as con- stantly replied to by us, principally by Mr. Birkbeck. The native question showed itself then as now. It will be in place to give a sample of the controversy in an address from our Settlement which appeared in the Illi- nois Gazette:
"An Address to the Citizens of Illinois for the day of Elec- tion, and worthy of their serious attention preparatory thereto :
"Blessed beyond all the nations of the earth in the enjoyment of civil and political freedom, under a con- stitution which is the admiration of the wise in every nation to which the knowledge of it has extended, the citizens of this great republic have yet to deplore that there exists within it a system of oppression, greatly exceeding in its cruelty and injustice all other calamities inflicted by tyranny upon its victims, an inheritance of wretchedness, extending from generation to generation.
" In those sections of the Republic where this system prevails, a large proportion of the people distinguished from the rest by color, but alike susceptible of pain and pleasure, with minds capable of improvement, though disgraced by their condition, are deprived of all rights, personal and civil, and groaning in hopeless servitude. The effect of this evil upon the states, laboring under-
208 ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUTNY.
this curse, (in addition to the every-day misery of the slaves), is to obstruct their improvement to an astonishing degree, especially by repressing population. According to a census made by congress in 1774, Virginia, at that period, contained 650,000 inhabitants. New York, includ- ing Vermont, and Pennsylvania, including Delaware, con- tained together only 600,000-that is to say 50,000 less than Virginia alone. In 1820, by the last census, New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware contained, omitting fractions, two millions six hundred thousand free persons; having increased above fourfold in forty-six years, eight of which were under the pressure of a consuming war. But these states had, during this period, delivered them- selves from slavery, that still more consuming plague with which we are now threatened. Virginia unhappily remained in bondage; and by the census of 1820, instead of a popu- lation of two millions and a-half, which she probably would have attained, if free, had little more than one million, of which four hundred and forty-five thousand were slaves; exposing a deficiency arising from this source in that single state, of two millions of free persons. In the value of land and the amount of manufacturing and commercial capital vested in public institutions, canals, hospitals, seminaries of learning, etc., the contrast is still more remarkable; a tenfold proportion in favor of the Free-states is probably below the truth. To this add the number and vast superi- ority of their towns and cities and cultivated farms, with the industry, tranquillity, and security of the inhabitants. Pursue the comparison throughout the Union, and such is the lamentable result; misery and vice, restraining
209
BIRKBECK'S ADDRESS CONTINUED.
population where slavery prevails, and drying up all the sources of prosperity.
" We are assembled this day to make our election be- tween freedom with its blessings, and slavery and its curses unutterable; between good and evil. Indiana, our sister state, has given us an example of wisdom by an overwhelming majority against a slave-making conven- tion. Ohio, another sister rejoicing in her own freedom, is exerting herself in the generous hope of laying a foundation of universal emancipation; as appears by an earnest appeal to the Union lately issued by her legis- lature. United as we are with these states in a solemn compact against the admission of slavery, let Illinois prove herself worthy of their affinity, and coming for- ward with one consent on the side of wisdom and virtue, let us disappoint the hopes of a short - sighted party among us, who would sacrifice our permanent interests to their mistaken views of temporary advantage. The individual who presumes thus to address you is no poli- tician; has no objects at variance with the general wel- fare; no ambition but to be a friend of mankind, and especially his brethern and fellow-citizens of this State."
This address was also published in handbill form, and freely distributed previous to the election. It was the last address from our side previous to the vote; and as it has been said to have been attended with effect, I have given it the first place here.
In June, a series of letters signed "Jonathan Freeman", on the free side, replied to by "John Rifle", appeared in the Sharnectoron Gazette. The following are specimens of the style and talent of each writer:
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210
ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUNTY.
JONATHAN FREEMAN'S LETTER, NO. I.
"To the Editor of the Illinois Gasette:
"Sir-I am a poor man; that is to say I have no money. But I have a house to cover me, and the rest of us, a stable for my horses, and a little barn, on a quarter of good land paid up at the land-office, with a middling fine clearing upon it and a good fence. I have about thirty head of cattle, some of them prime, and a good chance of hogs; and by the labors of my boys, we make a shift to get along. We help our neighbors, who are generally as poor as ourselves ;- some that are new- comers are not so well fixed. They help us in turn; and as it is the fashion to be industrious, I discover that we are all by degrees growing wealthy, not in money to be sure, but in truck.
"There is a great stir among the land-jobbers and poli- ticians, to get slaves into the country; because, as they say, we are in great distress; and I have been thinking how it would act with me and my neighbors. I read your paper as it comes out, but don't find anything to clear it up. First of all you gave us an address from a meeting at Vandalia in praise of a convention; next you published the protest of the minority against the tricks of the slave-party; and then you said we had the whole matter before us. Though you seem to hang that way, you have not said how slavery is to do good to me, and the like of me-that is four citizens out of five in the State. I have already seen people from Kentucky, and some of the neighbors have been traveling in that country. They all agree in one story, that the Ken-
2II
JONATHAN FREEMAN'S LETTER.
tuckians are as bad off for money as we, some say worse. People that have been to New Orleans say it is the same all down the river; no money, but a power of plantations to sell, if there were any buyers. As money seems to be all we want, and they want it just as much as we do, I don't see how those slave-gentry are to make it plenty, unless sending more produce to New Orleans would raise the price; as to neighbors, give me plain farmers, working with their own free hands, or the hands of free workmen. Not great planters and their negroes; for negroes are middling light-fingered, and I suspect we should have to lock up our cabins when we left home, and if we were to leave our linen out all night, we might chance to miss it in the morning. The planters are great men, and will ride about mighty grand, with umbrellas over their heads, when I and my boys are working perhaps bare- headed in the hot sun. Neighbors indeed ! they would have it all their own way, and rule over us like little kings; we should have to patrol round the country to keep their negroes under, instead of minding our own business; but if we lacked to raise a building, or a dollar, the d-1 a bit would they help us .;
"This is what I have been thinking, and so I suspect we all think, but they who want to sell out; and they that want to sell, will find themselves mistaken if they expect the Kentckians to buy their improvements, when they can get Congress-land at a dollar and a-quarter an acre. It is men who come from Free-states with money in their pockets, and no workhands about them, that buy improve- ments. Yours, JONATHAN FREEMAN."
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ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUNTY.
"JOHN RIFLE'S" LETTER IN REPLY TO JONATHAN FREEMAN'S FIRST LETTER.
" Sir :- I have seen in your paper of Saturday last, a letter signed Jonathan Freeman, about which I wish to make a few remarks, This Freeman lives near the Wa- bash, and is a neighbor of mine, and from what I know of him, I am certain there is something not right about this letter. I know that he could not have wrote it himself, for two reasons; first, the man has not been sober for three months; and, second, he can't write. Freeman used to be an honest, industrious man, until about a year ago, when he got into the habit of going to Albion, keeping com- pany with the English, and drinking beer. He has got so haunted to the place, that there is no breaking him off; and it will be the ruin of him; for beer, you know, has the effect of stupefying and clouding the mind, as we may see by all the English that come over. Some chance ones are peart enough, but in a general way they have what I call a beer-fog over them. If it had not been for this, Free- man would never have allowed any man to put his name to such an instrument of writing as the one in your paper. There is no doubt that the English have been cologing with him on the subject of the convention, taking advan- tage of him when he was not rightly at himself, and may be some of them wrote that piece for him; however, I don't think he ever knew anything about it.
"Now as to the letter itself, let us see whether it is true. He says in one place, I discover that we are all by degrees growing rich, not in money to be sure, but in truck. This
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JOHN RIFLE'S REPLY.
I do say is not true. I appeal to the farmers throughout the State, whether any of them are getting rich, in money or truck, or anything else. They will answer-No. He says there is a great stir among "land-jobbers and politi- cians to get slaves into the country ; " let me ask who does he mean by land-jobbers and politicians? Does he mean the Legislature? If so, the people will not thank him for libelling two-thirds of their representatives as land-jobbers, nor will truth justify him; for, in fact, a large majority of the Legislature were plain farmers like ourselves. Perhaps he means the people, and there he is equally wrong. The farmers of this country have no right to be called land- jobbers; whether they are politicians or not, will be found out at next election, when, I think, they will show that they will not be fuddled by British beer, nor cajoled out of their rights by British influence.
"He says, 'the planters are great men, and will ride about, mighty grand, with umbrellas over their heads, when I and my boys are working, perhaps, bareheaded in the hot sun.' I now ask all the Kentuckians in this State to give evidence on this point. Do the people of Ken- tucky ride about, mighty grand, with umbrellas over their heads? We have a great many Kentuckians, Tennesseeans, and North Carolinians in this State, and we don't find that they are more grand and proud than other folks. As for working bareheaded in the sun, I did not know that it was usual to do that in this country. They say the poor devils in the old country have to do it; but there is nothing to prevent their covering their heads here; and if they are too lazy to do so, I say let them go bareheaded. The
214. ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUNTY.
fact is, that the man who wrote that letter for Freeman, has been used to have poor white folks for slaves; and they want to keep up the same rule here, which God for- bid. If they expect to introduce nobility, taxes, and white slavery among us, they will be mistaken. They tried that before the Revolution, and much they got by it.
"Again, the writer of this letter says the negroes are middling light-fingered, and he gives this as an objection against their admission. This is as much as to say the blacks are thieves, and therefore we will not admit them among us as slaves, and keep them under control; but we will let them in as free people, and allow them the chance of stealing like gentlemen. I am a little surprised that the objection to light-fingered people should come from that quarter, for I am told that the people of a certain island over the water are so highly gifted in this way, that they can scarcely keep their hands out of each other's pockets; and that they are hung for it by dozens; but perhaps they wish to keep the business in their own hands in this country.
"Mr. Editor, I have now done with my neighbor Free- man. I would advise him to mind his farm, and not be writing letters to the printer. Or, if he is so very anxious to be high up in the papers, to get some of his own coun- trymen to write his documents. I don't think that any good will be done by writing, no how; for the people of this country will have their way, and the majority will govern, in spite of nabobs, who would make white slaves of us.
June 17, 1823. JOHN RIFLE."
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JONATHAN FREEMAN'S SECOND LETTER.
FREEMAN'S SECOND LETTER.
"Sir :- As you have printed my homely letter, showing the sort of neighbors the slave-gentlemen and their negroes would be to us plain Illinois farmers, I send you my sim- ple thoughts, on what is brought up by way of excuse, by people who, I believe, know better, though they think that such as I do not. They say that if slaves from Kentucky come into Illinois, there will be as many less in Ken- tucky as there will be more here; so that the number of the whole will not be greater than if they had stayed there. I see the matter differently. When a man moves, it is because he is uneasy, and can't thrive; so he goes where he can do better; the better people are off, the faster they will increase. Many people in Kentucky are deep in debt, and have nothing left to call their own but slaves. In that case, they can't carry on to any good purpose. It goes hard with such men's negroes, ivith bellies pinched and short of clothing, they roam about by night, and pick up any thing they can find, to cover their backs or satisfy hunger. This is a great plague to a neighborhood, and very hurtful to the slaves. When a gang of these hungry, naked creatures, that hardly keep up in numbers, owing to their misery, move into a country where their master gets good land almost for nothing, they make plenty of corn and pork, and breed two for one. The neighborhood they left goes on better without them, and soon fills up their room; so that the slaves now in Kentucky are just as many more. If Ohio had been a slave-state, there would have been, at this time, about two hundred thousand more slaves in the world, and two hundred thousand fewer free
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216 ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUNTY.
persons. Which do you think best, Mr. Editor, to raise freemen or slaves? Some say we ought to let them into this country from humanity, because they would be better off. This sounds mighty well; but it is a hypocritical ar- gument; because kindness to the negroes is not the object. If they want room, why should they come to Illinois? There is plenty of wild land in Kentucky. All Missouri is open to them, besides the Southern States. We should consider, too, that when we open a country to slaves, we close it against freemen, who also want to better their situation. JONATHAN FREEMAN."
" To the Editor of the Illinois Gasette:
"Sir :- There are some persons, who, after all the pains that have been taken to open their eyes, are still hanker- ing for slavery. Men, under the dominion of passion, can not hearken to reason.' Passion is both deaf and blind, and Avarice is an overbearing passion, they acknowledge to be wrong; they are convinced that in the end, it would be impolitic; but urged by this demon, on they rush. I can compare them to nothing but the herd of swine we read of in the Testament, which, 'being possessed by a devil, ran furiously down a steep place into the sea;' and a sea of trouble it would be, a sea of troubles from which they would never be extricated. Suppose twenty thousand negroes to be in the State (no great number, only about two to a family) then begins a war to which there will be neither truce nor treaty; a war of oppression on the one hand, and of revenge on the other, rendering both parties wretched during its continuance, and to be ended, sooner
217
HORRORS OF SLAVERY DEPICTED.
or later, by the destruction of one or other of them. Look at old Virginia, which in 1774, was by far the most power- ful State in the Union, containing six hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, more by fifty thousand than New York and Pennsylvania together, including Vermont, and I believe Delaware. Look at her condition during the last war with Great Britain. She could not contribute her quota of militia to the general defence, through fear of her slave population. Look at the Carolinas and Georgia. Consider their constant alarms; the system of nightly patrols, which, horrible as it truly is, is but the beginning of sorrows, something by way of prevention. As yet the power and the show of fighting has been all on one side; and so seems to be the suffering. The white man holds the rifle and brandishes the cow-skin, while the wretched victims, like the souls under the altar, are crying, 'How long, oh, Lord, holy and true, doest thou not judge and avenge our blood ?' But is the suffering all on one side? How fares it with the trembling females when their hus- bands and fathers are out, on this hateful but necessary duty? Do you think they sleep, and if they do what are their dreams? When they have gathered up every tool which might be converted into a weapon of destruction, and barricaded their houses, and laid themselves in their beds with their little ones around them. How fare they ? The midnight torch and the club, and the spirit of ven- geance are abroad and awake, and do you think they repose in tranquility ?
"Such, my fellow-citizens, advocates of this accursed system, is the inheritance you would provide for your
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ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN EDWARDS COUNTY.
posterity! I pray you to count the cost before you make the purchase. What I faintly describe to you is a very small part of the misery you would bring on yourselves and your children; these are pains of precaution, merely; all this and more must be endured, to put off the evil day which, sooner or later, will surely arrive. Besides this, on which would depend your very existence, there would be on every plantation a perpetual conflict between the eagerness of the master and the apathy of the slave; the simplest work must be carried on by violence and terror.
"The white man, even the white woman (odious to con- template), must be ready to apply the lash; and there would be an incessant war of plunder, in which the whites would have to act on the defensive. Every thing that can be secured, must be under lock. Your clothing and provisions and choice fruit and poultry ; you might watch them, but it would be in vain. One thief in a neighbor- hood is a sufficient nuisance, but then there would be a hundred. If mischief to your property, by theft, would be increased a hundred fold, so would danger from fire; not through negligence only, but through design. What precautions are found necessary in slave-states against this devouring calamity! Yet fires are continually occur- ring; if you ask how they happened, the invariable answer is: 'from the carelessness or the malice of the negroes.' Then, too, would arise an overwhelming flood of gross immorality, carrying all decency before it. But I restrain my pen; the catalogue of calamities would be endless; and could all the advantages, which the conventionists
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