USA > Illinois > Illinois, historical and statistical, comprising the essential facts of its planting and growth as a province, county, territory, and state, Vol. II > Part 6
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It was a strong ticket, ably led by Col. Richardson-who had represented his district eleven years in congress, since his earlier services in the legislature, and had been conspicuous in the national house of representatives as the right-hand man of Judge Douglas in promoting the Kansas-Nebraska legislation.
That portion of the American, or know-nothing organization which had not been absorbed by the republicans or democrats, met in state council at Springfield, May 6, with sadly depleted numbers. The nominees at first agreed upon refused to accept the empty honors, and after several attempts a ticket was finally made up as follows: Buckner S. Morris of Cook County, for governor; T. B. Hickman, lieutenant-governor; W. H. Young for secretary of state; Dr. - - Barbor for auditor; James Miller-afterward nominated by the republicans-for treasurer; and E. Jenkins for superintendent of schools.
The first of the national conventions held this year was that
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of the Americans at Philadelphia, Feb. 19, 1856, at which Millard Fillmore was nominated for president and Andrew J. Donelson for vice-president.
Judge Douglas was again a candidate for nomination at the democratic national convention, which was held at Cincinnati, June 2, but had to surrender to James Buchanan on the six- teenth ballot.
The republican national convention was held at Philadel- phia, June 17, at which John C. Fremont was nominated for president and Wm. L. Dayton for vice-president; Abraham Lincoln receiving the next highest number of votes for the latter office.
The campaign of 1856 was one of the most exciting and hotly contested ever fought in this State. It was evident that as in the Nation so in the State, such was the progress made by the republicans, the only hope the democrats had of suc- cess was in the divisions of their opponents and in prevent- ing their fusion. Their denunciations of abolitionists and "black republicans," as they termed their antagonists, were tre- mendous. In the southern and central portions of the State the supporters of Fremont were "few and far between." In the county of Franklin he received only five votes, in Hamil- ton nine, in Hardin four, in Johnson two, in Massac five, in Pope eleven, in Saline four, and in Williamson ten. These were cast by preachers, teachers, and eastern people, who were mostly non-combatants, and who, while they were fearless in argument, were not inclined to resort to the knife, bludgeon, or pistol, in defence of their principles, though frequently provoked to do so by the outrageous abuse and overbearing conduct of their opponents. But here and there were found those who had determined that they would not submit to this kind of bulldozing. One of these was John M. Palmer, between whom and Maj. Harris, then running for congress in his district, there had been considerable ill-feeling. The major had written a letter to be read at a democratic meeting at which Palmer was present. It was very abusive of the repub- licans, and the latter, rising, remarked that the author would not dare make such charges to the face of any honest man. Harris, hearing of this, gave out word that he would resent it
CAMPAIGN OF 1856.
at the first opportunity, which Palmer soon gave him by attending one of his meetings. The major in the course of his speech broke out in the most vituperative language against abolitionists, calling them disturbers of the peace, incendiaries, and falsifiers, and at length, turning to Palmer and pointing his finger at him, said, "I mean you, sir!" Palmer rising to his feet, instantly replied, "Well, sir, if you apply that language to me you are a dastardly liar!" And drawing a pistol, he started toward the speaker's stand. "Now, sir," he continued, "when you get through I propose to reply to you." The major had not anticipated this turn of affairs, but prudently kept his temper and finished his speech. No one interfering, Palmer then arose, and laying his weapon before him, cocked, proceeded to give the democratic party such a castigation as none of those present had ever heard before.
Fillmore was able to hold a sufficient number of know-noth- ing votes to give a plurality of 9159 and the electorial vote of the State to Buchanan, but the know-nothing state ticket did not do so well and the republicans were successful by a plural- ity of 4732 votes .*
Gov. Bissell came to this State from New York, and entered upon the practice of his profession as a physician in Monroe County.+ The practice of medicine was not to his taste and he soon evinced a preference for public life. In 1840, he was elected to the legislature, where he was soon recognized as possessing in the highest degree the qualifications of an orator. Upon his return home, so great had been his success as an able and efficient public speaker that he determined to abandon medicine for the law; he was soon admitted to the bar and appointed prosecuting attorney. He at once took a front rank among the lawyers in his circuit, it being conceded almost a hopeless task to defend where he was prosecuting. His style of speaking was at once forcible and elegant, always succeeding in carrying his hearers with him. His distinguished
* The general result in the State was as follows: Buchanan electors 105,348; Fremont, 96, 189; Fillmore, 37,444. Bissell 111,375; Richardson 106,643; Morris 19,088. Plurality for Hatch 9291; Dubois 3031; Powell 3215; majority for Miller (only two candidates) 2013. The republicans elected four congressmen and the democrats five.
t He was born in Yates County, New York, April 25, 1811.
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military services in the Mexican war as colonel of the Second Illinois Regiment, have already been adverted to. After his return from the war he was, in 1848, elected to congress and reelected in 1850 and in 1852; where he took a leading part and became noted for his engaging manners, his attention to the business before the house, and his eloquence in debate.
Although a democrat, he was not favorably impressed with the blustering manners of and assumption of superiority by the southern members of his party. He had already discovered the signs of a desire to precipitate a conflict between the two sections; and while he supported the pending measures of adjustment (1850), he began to perceive that the South was inclined to ask for such farther concessions as it would not be possible to grant consistently with honor and justice.
He sat quietly in his seat and listened day after day without a word to the arraignment of the North by southern members, for its alleged outrages against the institutions of the South, until one day a member from Virginia-Jas. A. Seddon-in an attempt to exalt the bravery of southern troops over that of those from the North, set up the claim that it was the regiment from Mississippi which met and repulsed the enemy at the battle of Buena Vista at the most critical moment-after the northern troops had given way. The indignation of the gallant member from Illinois could be no longer restrained. Taking the speech of Brown of Mississippi, against the free-states for his text, he proceeded to defend the North against the charge of aggressions against the rights of the South in a masterly effort, bristling with telling points, which commanded the marked attention of the house. But when he came to repel the unjust claim of the gentleman from Virginia in regard to the conduct of our troops at Buena Vista, the silence and atten- tion throughout the hall became profound and impressive. He gave forth no uncertain sound. "I affirm distinctly, sir," said Bissell, "that at the time the Second Indiana Regiment gave way, through an unfortunate order of their colonel, the Missis- sippi regiment for whom the claim is gratuitously set up, was not within a mile and a half of the scene of action, nor yet had it fired a gun or pulled a trigger. I affirm further, sir, that the troops which at that time met and resisted the enemy and thus,
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to use the gentleman's own language, 'snatched victory from the jaws of defeat' were the Second Kentucky, the Second Illi- nois, and a portion of the First Illinois regiments. It gives me no pleasure, sir, to be compelled to allude to this subject, nor can I see the necessity or propriety of its introduction in this debate. It having been introduced, however, I could not sit in silence and witness the infliction of such cruel injustice upon men, living and dead, whose well-earned fame I were a monster not to protect. The true, brave hearts of too many of them, alas, have already mingled with the soil of a foreign country; but their claims upon the justice of their country- men can never cease, nor can my obligations to them be ever forgotten or disregarded. No, sir, the voice of Hardin, that voice which has so often been heard in this hall, as mine now is, though far more eloquently, the voice of Hardin, yea, and of McKee, and the accomplished Clay-each wrapped now in his bloody shroud-their voices would reproach me from the grave had I failed in this act of justice to them and to others who fought and fell by my side.
"You will suspect me, Mr. Chairman, of having warm feel- ings on this subject. Sir, I have; and have given them utter- ance as a matter of duty. In all this, however, I by no means detract from the gallant conduct of the Mississippi regiment. At other times and places on that bloody field they did all that their warmest admirers could desire. But, let me ask again, why was this subject introduced into this debate? Why does this gentleman say 'troops of the North' gave way, when he means only a single regiment? Why is all this, but for the purpose of disparaging the North for the benefit of the South? Why, but for furnishing materials for that ceaseless, never- ending theme of 'Southern chivalry?'"*
Neither the logic nor the manner of this speech, in its un- flinching boldness, severity, and firmness, could be tolerated, and it was at once determined that the honor of the South required that Bissell must be silenced or disgraced. Jefferson Davis, then a senator from Mississippi, who commanded the regiment from that state at Buena Vista, was selected to bring the matter to an issue. Professing to be aggrieved and insulted
* "Cong. Globe," XXII, pt. 1, 228.
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
at the manner in which Bissell had spoken of his regiment, he challenged him to mortal combat. While the bravery of Col. Bissell was unquestioned, it was supposed by many that his northern education and the unpopularity of the duello in his own State would compel him to decline a hostile meeting. But in this they had mistaken their man-Bissell promptly accepted the challenge and selected, as he had the right to do, as the weapon to be used, the army musket, to be loaded with a ball and three buckshot, the combatants to be stationed forty paces apart with liberty to advance to ten. The mortal issue of such a conflict for one or both of the parties had not been in the programme, and the question arose how to avoid such an inevitable catastrophe. President Taylor, the father-in-law of Mr. Davis, having been advised of the situation the evening before the contemplated meeting, provided for the arrest of the belligerents on the following morning, but the intervention of other friends in the meantime led to a satisfactory adjust- ment of the quarrel. All that was required of Col. Bissell was to say in relation to the conduct of the Mississippi regiment, "but I am willing to award to them the credit due to their gallant and distinguished services in that battle," which was nothing more than to repeat what he had already in effect stated in the speech which occasioned the warlike message.
Gov. Bissell at the time of his nomination and election was an invalid, his spine having been injured by a fall, and he was unable to walk without the use of crutches. Although his lower limbs were partially paralyzed, the powers of his mind were not affected. He made only one speech during the campaign, and that at his home in Belleville.
Although the republicans had succeeded in electing their state officers and there was shown to be a majority of over 20,000 votes against the democrats, the latter secured both branches of the legislature, although the majority was barely one in each, the senate standing thirteen to twelve, and the house thirty-eight democrats, thirty-one republicans, and six Americans. The seat of the democratic member from Peoria, Mr. Shallenberger, was contested by Calvin L. Eastman, who, although his claim was denied on a tie vote, was allowed the same pay as the sitting member.
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TWENTIETH GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
The following senators were reelected: Messrs. Judd, Cook, O'Kean, and Bryan. L. E. Worcester of Greene, was returned in place of John M. Palmer, resigned. The other new members were: Thomas J. Henderson of Bureau, Wm. C. Goudy of Fulton, Joel S. Post of Macon, Samuel W. Fuller of Tazewell, Wm. H. Underwood of St. Clair, G. A. D. Parks of Will, Cyrus W. Vanderin of Sangamon, Samuel H. Martin of White, E. C. Coffey of Washington, and Hiram Rose of Henderson, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Jacob C. Davis.
In the house, the only members returned who had served formerly in that body were: Messrs. Sloan, Boal, O. L. Davis, Dougherty, John A. Logan, W. R. Morrison, Pinckney, Denio, Lawrence, Preston, Moulton, Isaac N. Arnold, and Burke. Among the new members were E. C. Ingersoll, then a demo- crat from Gallatin County, Wm. B. Anderson, Wm. A. J. Sparks, Shelby M. Cullom, Wm. Lathrop, all of them afterward members of congress, Cyrus Epler, Franklin Blades, J. V. Eus- tace, all subsequently circuit-judges, Moses M. Bane, Jerome R. Gorin, Elmer Baldwin, and L. S. Church.
The proceedings while a temporary organization was being effected were characterized by disorder and violence. E. T. Bridges, clerk of the last house, claimed the right to call the roll, which was contested by the democrats. Mr. Dougherty was elected chairman and Capt. J. L. McConnel of Morgan, temporary clerk. Both clerks proceeded to call the roll at the same time and both received credentials. Mr. Ingersoll moved that Bridges be expelled from the house, which being declared carried, he was forcibly ejected from the hall by the sergeant- at-arms. Samuel Holmes of Quincy, was finally elected speaker, receiving thirty-six votes to twenty-eight for Arnold, four for Cullom, and two scattering. Charles Leib was chosen clerk and James M. Blades doorkeeper. Benjamin Bond was elected secretary of the senate and David J. Waggoner sergeant-at- arms.
The valedictory message of Gov. Matteson was a plainly written and clear statement of the progress and condition of the State at this time, and, containing no reference to politics, was well received by all parties.
Gov. Bissell was inaugurated at the executive mansion, Jan.
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12, and his address was read by Isaac R. Diller at the joint- meeting of the general assembly.
The animosities of the late campaign were carried into the legislature and kept alive in the house during the entire ses- sion. The governor's inaugural was a straightforward, well- written, and dignified state paper in which he referred to the administration of his predecessor in highly complimentary terms. He concurred in all of his recommendations and sug- gested no measures of his own. But although he had com- mented but briefly upon the Nebraska controversy, and in mild terms, it stirred the ire of the democrats at once. Upon the motion to print the address, a virulent attack was made upon him, John A. Logan taking the lead. The Davis duel was seized upon as a violation of the constitution, it being charged that the governor had committed perjury in taking the oath of office. Able replies to these attacks were made by Isaac N. Arnold, C. B. Denio, and others, in which it was shown that the offence charged was committed outside the limits of the State and beyond the legal jurisdiction of the constitution of Illinois.
The principal contest, however, was over the apportion- ment bills, one from each party having been presented. That of the democrats was passed, but the controversy was ended only by a decision of the supreme court. It appears that when the measure was presented to the governor for his signature, it was accompanied by the appropriation bill. The former he intended to veto and the latter to approve, but by a mistake he signed and returned the apportionment bill instead of that for the appropriations. The democrats refusing to recall the bill, he managed in some way to obtain possession of it, when he erased his signature thereto and sent in his veto message. This the house refused to receive, and ordered the bill to be filed with the secretary of state. Against this action the republicans filed a protest which was, on motion, expunged from the journal. The question of the legality of the apportionment law having been taken to the supreme court upon a mandamus proceeding, that body decided, that during the ten days in which a bill is construc- tively under the control of the executive it has not the force
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of law, and that he had the right to return the bill to the house with his veto, notwithstanding it had once received his signature.
There were but few laws of general interest passed at this session, those to establish a Normal University, and to build an additional penitentiary being the most important.
The session adjourned on the morning of Feb. 19, the house with less than a quorum, most of the members having dis- persed the previous night amid darkness, disorder, and con- fusion.
Although there were but two state officers to be voted for in 1858, it would devolve upon the legislature then chosen to elect a United-States senator in the place of Judge Douglas, a fact which imparted to the campaign of that year, unusual interest and importance. The Kansas-Nebraska controversy had by this time assumed an entirely new phase. At a convention held at Lecompton in October, 1857, the instru- ment historically known as the Lecompton constitution was adopted, which was subsequently endorsed by President Buchanan and his cabinet, and by the executive submitted to congress, February 2, 1858, with the recommendation that the territory of Kansas be admitted as a state under its provisions.
Judge Douglas promptly took ground against this constitu- tion, declaring that its mode of submission to the people was a "mockery and insult," and that he would resist it to the last as being illegal, unfair, and in contravention of his doctrine of popular sovereignty.
The democratic state convention was held at Springfield, April 21, and placed Wm. B. Fondey in nomination for state treasurer and ex-Gov. A. C. French for state superintendent of public schools. The course of Judge Douglas in congress was warmly eulogized, and although his candidacy was not in terms endorsed, there was no question but that he was the choice of the convention to be his own successor.
At the same time and place, there was held what was denomi- nated the convention of the national democratic party, which had been called by the supporters of the Buchanan adminis- tration. Only twenty-four counties were represented, and it
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adjourned to reconvene in June, at which time a state ticket was nominated with John Dougherty of Union County for state treasurer, and ex-Gov. John Reynolds for state superintendent of public schools.
The disagreement between Douglas and the administration of Buchanan, and its opposition to his reelection proved a benefit to him rather than a disadvantage. While a number of former friends, holding federal offices, were arrayed against him, the masses of the democratic party were the more firmly bound to his fortunes by the disruption.
At the republican state convention, held at the capitol, June 16, in which nearly every county was represented, James Mil- ler was renominated as the candidate for state treasurer, and Newton Bateman was selected, on the third ballot, for superin- tendent of public schools. But one man, who had justly earned the undisputed position of leader, was thought of for the highest place in view, and the convention, with entire un- animity, resolved that Abraham Lincoln was the first and only choice of the republicans for the United-States senate. Such an endorsement, though without precedent, was not unexpected, and yet the honor came at a time when it was considered as of doubtful value. The contest of Judge Douglas with the Buchanan administration, over the Lecompton constitution, had brought him largely into sympathy with the opponents of the extension of slavery. William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, had been dispatched East to feel the republican pulse. He found that many of the leaders, while speaking favorably of Lincoln thought that it would be "good poli- tics" to permit the reelection of Judge Douglas. Horace Gree- ley, in his New-York Tribune, which had a large circulation in Illinois, not only endorsed the judge's course but had said of him personally, "no public man in our day has earned a nobler fidelity and courage;" and that if Lincoln's election was to be secured by a coalition between republicans and "a little faction of postmasters, tide-waiters, and federal office-seekers, who for the sake of their dirty pudding, present and hoped for, pretend to approve the Lecompton fraud," it would be viewed with regret by the republicans of other states.
This attitude of the leading paper of his party and of such
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men as Seward and Banks, at the opening of the campaign, was to Lincoln like the withdrawal from the field on the eve of battle of a tried battalion, relied upon to obtain the victory. Its dampening and dispiriting effect upon him was plainly to be seen, while it was correspondingly helpful and encouraging to Judge Douglas.
Mr. Lincoln, with unfailing intuition, saw that former posi- tions must be exchanged for those of a more radical and far- reaching character. That a line must be drawn, upon one side or the other of which every one must stand, leaving no place for a third party, nor for any one who regarded the question of slavery merely as one of property rights and who cared not whether it was voted down or voted up by the people, as his opponent had declared his own sentiment to be in a speech on the Lecompton constitution.
Mr. Lincoln, with the greatest care and his best thought, pre- pared the address afterward delivered to the republican con- vention, writing it in fragmentary parts on scraps of paper carried in his hat and afterward revised and copied at length .*
Although so widely copied and commented upon, the follow- ing extract from the address is here given:
"'A house divided against itself can not stand.' I believe this government can not endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South."
Before delivering this speech, Lincoln submitted it to the judgment of his friends, not one of whom approved of it, except his law-partner. Indeed, the general opinion was strongly averse to the sentiment as expressed in the foregoing extract. With his usual self-reliance he arose and remarked: "Friends, the time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I shall go down because of this
* Herndon's " Lincoln," II, 397.
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speech, then let me go down linked to the truth-let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right."*
The selection of Lincoln by the republicans as their stand- ard-bearer in this campaign was due no less to a desire to confer upon him what was regarded as a deserved promo- tion, than to the fact of his supposed willingness and ability to meet his distinguished competitor on the stump. If he was not able to cope successfully with the great senator, it would be useless for any other man to make the attempt. And as Doug- las had never shown any backwardness to meet any foeman in debate, it was generally concluded that the great issue between the two parties-of opposition to slavery extension on the one side and the advocates of the principle of non-intervention on the other-was to be publicly fought out by them in the arena of joint debate. It was to be an intellectual combat, in which giants were the principals and the entire Nation spectators.
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