USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74
STATE MACHINERY SET IN MOTION
The Enabling Aet became a law April 18, 1818. The election of delegates to the constitutional convention was fixed for the first Monday in July, and that body was to convene the first Monday in August. But the first thing to do was to take the census of the territory, and if it did not have the 40,000, then there would be no
75
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
need for the convention. It was soon evident that the territory did not have the required number. The story is told that the mar- shal stationed his enumerators on the public highways and counted the travelers and immigrants, regardless of their destination. Not only this, but it is asserted that often the same traveler or immi- grant was counted twice, or even thrice. At last the enumerators returned 40,000 inhabitants, but as the returns were afterward footed up there were really only thirty-four thousand six hundred and twenty people in the proposed state. The delegates were duly elected and assembled at Kaskaskia on the first Monday in August.
The convention met August 3, 1818, and finished its labors and ad- journed August 26th. JJesse B. Thomas from St. Clair County was elected chairman, and William C. Greenup was made secretary.
The constitution was not submitted to the people for ratification and the only officers whom the people might eleet were : Governor, lieu- tenant-governor, members of the general assembly, sheriffs and coro- ners. The offices which were filled by appointment of either the gov- ernor or the general assembly were : Judges of the supreme, cireuit and probate courts: prosecuting attorney, county clerk, eirenit elerk, re- eorder, justice of the peace, auditor of public accounts, attorney-gen- eral and secretary of state.
The day fixed by the constitution for the election of state officers was the third Thursday (17th) of September, 1818, when Shadrach Bond was chosen governor, Pierre Menard, lieutenant-governor, and John MeLean, representative in Congress. There were also elected fourteen senators and twenty-nine representatives.
The Legislature was called to meet at Kaskaskia the first Monday in October (the 5th). The first thing for this Legislature was the ean- vass of the votes, and on Tuesday (the 6th) Governor Bond was in- angurated. The Legislature proceeded to the election of two United States senators. The choice fell upon Ninian Edwards and Jesse B. Thomas. The Legislature chose the following state offices : State treas- urer, John Thomas; anditor, Elijah C. Berry ; attorney-general, Daniel P. Clark : supreme judges, Joseph Phillips (chief justice), William P. Foster, Thomas C. Brown, and John Reynolds. The governor ap- pointed Elias Kent Kane secretary of state.
Under the Constitution of 1818 the governor did not have the veto power as a sole prerogative. It was exercised by him in conjunction with the Supreme Court, the joint body being known as the Council of Revision. It abolished imprisonment for debt ; declared against the introduction of slavery and the indenture of anybody except on con- dition of a bona fide consideration. The constitution did not affect the slaves held by the French and their descendants. Provision was, how- ever, made that slaves hired in slave states could be brought into the salt works at Shawneetown and held for one year; then hired again for a like period : but even this traffic must cease by 1825. Of course, the constitution provided for the regular division of the Government
WIST 9
OM
MILAKE
MICHIGAN
MISSOURI TER.
S
11
Z
re clara
A
Sterling
M
BOND
MIRIAM
CR
AW ORO
Poles
5 secharles.
N
MISSO
5 Canon MEU
Vide Posts
EDWARDS S
O MONROE
RANDOLPH'
a Harmoni
Poduportie
C
WACKSON
ONIO GALLATIN PRaleigh
ILLINOIS
IN 1818.
cape
AGUNION
Solcon
10
SCALE OF M'LES
JOHNSON
faro
37ยช
CATOURCHE
PANOR
S MADISON
rincerne
C
WASHINGTONSE
FRANKLIN I
T
77
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
into legislative, excentive and judicial departments, and the election or appointment of the officials designed to fulfill their functions.
Governor Bond was elected without opposition, largely on the strength of his authorship of the Pre-emption Act while serving as a territorial delegate of Congress.
Following the announcement of the acceptance of the constitution by Congress, Governor Bond called the Legislature in special session for January 4, 1819. The machinery of the first state government was thus set in motion. In his short and unassuming message the gover- nor recommended the early completion of the canal connecting the headwaters of the Illinois River with Lake Michigan; the passage of measures to relieve the state treasury, and a modification of the crimi- nal laws in force during the territorial period. But the Legislature went ahead, in its own way, and passed such measures as a code of laws based on the Virginia and Kentucky statutes; levying taxes on lands owned by nonresidents, and on slaves and indentured servants, and moving the capital from Kaskaskia to a point on the Kaskaskia River, east of the third principal meridian, as well as asking Congress to donate lands for the purpose.
ILLINOIS BLACK CODE
The Legislature of 1819, also passed the Illinois Black Code en- titled "An Act Respecting Free Negroes. Mulattoes, Servants and Slaves." The Black Laws, as they were generally called, remained upon the books of Illinois until February 12, 1853, and were therefore in foree throughout Adams County for abont twenty-eight years from its organization. They comprised twenty-five sections, and were copied from old laws in force during the territorial period and originat- ing in the old slave states.
ILLINOIS COUNTIES IN 1818
When Illinois became a state in 1818, it was only the southernmost counties which were fully organized. Substantially they embraced the territory between the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers south of a line drawn east and west bounding St. Clair and Washington on the north, cutting off a northern tier of sections in Marion County of today. passing through nearly the center of Clay County and the upper third of Richland and east and southeast through Lawrence County to the Ohio. That area was then divided into St Clair, Washington, Ed- wards. Randolph, Monroe, Jackson, Franklin. Gallatin, Union, John- son and Pope. The remainder, and by far the larger portion of Illi- nois, was divided into Madison, Bond and Crawford counties. The last named embraced more than thirty of the counties now included in eastern, northeastern and central Illinois, and stretching from Crawford, Jasper, Effingham and Fayette counties on the south to the Wisconsin state line.
78
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
The Legislature of 1819 appointed five commissioners to locate the gift of lands made by Congress as the site of a new capital. They se- leeted four seetions immediately west of the Kaskaskia River, and completed a two-story frame building as a eapitol so that it was ready for the Legislature in the summer of 1820. When that body con- vened in December, of that year, it met in the new capital city of Van- dalia.
WILD CAT BANKING
The second General Assembly, which met at Vandalia, attempted to relieve the hard times prevalent in the state, especially eaused by the matured debts of land owners who had bought recklessly in years past, by chartering the Illinois State Bank, with headquarters at Van- dalia and branches at Edwardsville, Brownsville, Shawneetown and Albion. Bills of various denominations were issued on personal and real estate securities, and the State Senate passed a resolution asking the secretary of the treasury to accept the bills in payment of land. But its recommendation was not followed by the state treasury. Not- withstanding which. the State Branch and all its branches withered, and at the expiration of its charter in 1831 the commonwealth bor- rowed $100,000 in order to close up its business in an honorable way. It is fitting to remark that Governor Bond and the State Supreme Court, acting as the Board of Revision, had vetoed the original meas- ure, and that the Legislature passed it over their earnest objection.
This season of wild-cat banking, which so disturbed every legiti- mate business and agricultural interest in Illinois, had but an indireet offeet upon the development of Adams County, as permanent settle- ment had only fairly eommeneed during the later period of its opera- tions.
At the second session of the State Legislature, and the first held at Vandalia, several new counties were created-Lawrence, Greene. San- gamon, Pike, Hamilton, Montgomery and Fayette. Chicago was then in Pike County.
SLAVERY QUESTION AGAIN
The slavery issue in Illinois was a burning question in the Coles administration in 1822-24, but it culminated in the fall of the latter year in a decided popular vote against reopening the matter by calling a convention to consider a revision of the state constitution in regards to its pronunciamento against the continuation of the institution. With the exception of Union and Johnson, all the southern counties, where black labor was most in demand, favored the calling of the eon- vention.
The stronghold of the anti-slavery sentiment was that wonderfully fertile and charming Sangamon region, which lay along the valley of that river and stretched from the southern rim of the valley of the
79
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
Illinois toward the central regions of the state. It was rapidly settling up, and a few of the more adventurous had even "squatted" on choice timber traets along the headwaters of the Sangamon.
The Sangamon region was settled by immigrants from all the older states but probably those from the northern states predominated. More than two hundred families had settled in the Sangamon country before the land was surveyed. In the vote on the convention question, Sangamon County east 875 votes-153 for and 722 against, the con- vention. This would show a population of over 4,000 in 1824. It also means that these settlers were from the free states chiefly.
By the spring of 1825, the result of the slavery contest was known in all the older states, and, as if people were waiting for a favorable report, the movement of immigration began.
THE FAMOUS SANGAMON COUNTRY
The fame of the "Sangamon country" had spread into all the older settled portions of the United States and the migrations were largely toward that region. In the summer of 1825, the road leading into the "Sangamon country" was literally lined with movers seeking new homes. In Vandalia alone it is said 250 wagons were counted going north in three weeks.
The first to systematically explore the Sangamon region was Ferdi- nand Ernst. a German traveler, to whom had been carried even to Eu- rope, marvelous stories of that country: and he wished to "sco for himself." He reached the site of Vandalia before the sale of lots took place. which occurred the 6th of September, 1819. From here he visited the Sangamon country. There was a very good road leading from Edwardsville into the Sangamon country. As nearly as this road can be now traced, it ran in almost a straight line from Edwards- ville to the present eity of Carlinville, passing on the way the site of the present flourishing city of Bunker Hill. From Carlinville the road bent to the east-of-north, passing out of the present county of Macoupin at the northeast corner, three miles east of the present city of Virden : from this point cast-of-north to a point very near Roches- ter, and thence to a point near the junction of the south branch and north fork of the Sangamon River, leaving the site of the present capital some four or five miles to the west. From here the road con- tinned the same general direction to the present city of Lincoln. The road continued this general direction till it left the present county of Logan at the old Kickapoo capital. Here it struck Tazewell County and thence turned northwest to Lake Peoria. This was the route taken by Governor Edwards in his campaign in 1812.
Mr. Ernst. the traveler, took this road in 1819. He started from Vandalia and went northwest. crossed Shoal Creek, left the head- waters of Silver and Sugar Creek to the southwest, passed not far from Mt. Olive and Gillespie, and came into the road described above, a few miles north of Bunker Hill. He describes the big prairie which
80
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
separates the headwaters of the Maeoupin and the Sangamon. He says the moment one passes over the divide into the drainage basin of the Sangamon he sees a marked difference in the character of the soil. The second night out the traveler stayed with a family on Sugar Creek. about two miles west of Pawnce. Sixty farms had been opened on this stream since the spring of 1819. The sod-corn was from ten to fifteen feet high. The land was not yet surveyed and could not be for some three years. This was called "the beautiful land of the Sanga- mon." From this point Mr. Ernst traveled west in a eireuit around the present site of Springfield to Elkhart Grove. Here lived a Mr. Latham who had thirty acres in cultivation. This farm was the farth- est north of any east of the Illinois River. However, there were some farms laid out at the old Kickapoo capital just in the edge of Tazewell County, but no settlements made. Mr. Ernst went north to Salt Creek. but not being able to get across he retraced his steps.
Mr. Ernst says : "In the vicinity of this town (Vandalia) is a large amount of fine land : but every one is full of praise of those sixty or eighty miles northward upon the River Sangamon. The expression the 'Sangamon country,' applied to all that country through which the Sangamon River and its branches flow. Peck's Gazetteer, page 131, says : 'This country contains a larger quantity of rich land than any other in the state. The Sangamon, in particular, is an Areadian region, in which nature has delighted to bring together her happiest combinations of landscape. It is generally a level country. There is a happy proportion of timbered and prairied lands. The soil is of great fertility. All who have visited this fine tract of country admire the beauty of the landscape, which nature has here painted in primeval freshness.' "'
It was most fitting that this beautiful, fertile and invigorating region of Illinois should be first settled by an energetie, enterprising class of freemen and women, constitutionally opposed to the introduc- tion of any form of slavery into their virgin land.
DUNCAN AND FREE SCHOOL LAW
Joseph Duncan of Jacksonville, afterward congressman and gov- ernor, secured the passage of the free school law of 1825, which was the basis of the system of today. For its support, taxes were to be collected on the property of the people in the district, and provision was made for a board of directors who were to have control of the schools and buildings, examine the teachers and have general local oversight of all educational matters of a public nature.
In 1826-27 the Legislature provided for better securities from those who were borrowing the money for which the school lands had been sold. But in 1829 the Legislature repealed the part of the Duncan law of 1825 which gave 2 per cent of the net revenue of the State to the schools. Every commendable feature of the Duncan law was now repealed and the schools lay prostrate till 1855.
S1
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
The Legislature of 1828-29 also adopted the plan of selling the school and seminary lands. The law provided that the sixteenth see- tion of each township migh le sold whenever nine-tenths of the inhab- itants (evidently voters) were in favor of the sale. Later the law allowed the sale if three-fourths were in favor of it.
The immigrants coming into an unsettled township were always eager to dispose of the sixteenth seetion, as it made a fund with which the authorities might assist the schools. But this section when sold for $1.25 per aere, the regular Government price. would bring only $800, and this at 10 per cent interest would bring only $80 per year. This would not be of much service when distributed among the schools of the township.
Joseph Dunean stepped from Congress into the governorship, in 1834, and during his administration was chiefly engaged in wrestling with banking and internal improvement problems, which were so inti- mately connected. In 1837 the state bank, with other similar insti- tutions of the country, suspended specie payments, and in 1843 the Legislature passed a law "to diminish the State debt and put the State Bank into liquidation." The bank was given four years in which to wind up its business.
ILLINOIS INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS
While the affairs of the state bank and its branches were in chaos, an ambitious system of internal improvements was assumed by the state, despite the opposition of Governor Dunean and the Council of Revision. The bill as prepared by the Vandalia conven- tion to consider internal improvements became a law. It appropriated $10,000,000 for the following objects: Improvement of the Wabash, the Illinois, Rock, Kaskaskia and Little Wabash rivers, and the West- ern Mail Route $9.350,000 ; for railroads-Cairo to Galena. $3.500.000. Alton to Mount Carmel, $1.600.000: Quincy to Indiana line, $1,800,- 000: Shelbyville to Terre Haute, $650.000; Peoria to Warsaw. $700. 000; Alton to Central Railroad. $600.000; Belleville to Mount Carmel, $150,000; Bloomington to Pekin. $350.000, and Vincennes to St. Louis. $250.000: $200.000 "to pacify disappointed counties" which had failed to be promised any improvement whatsoever by the state. In addition, the sale of $1,000,000 worth of canal lands and the issuance of $500.000 in canal bonds were authorized, the proceeds to be used in the construction of the Illinois & Michigan Canal. $500.000 of this amount to be extended in 1838. A competent historian graphically tells what happened: "Work began at onee. Routes were surveyed and contraets for construction let. and an era of reekless speculation began. Large sums were rapidly expended and nearly $6,500,000 quickly added to the State debt. The system was soon demonstrated to be a failure and was abandoned for lack of funds, some of the 'improvements' already made being sold to private parties at a heavy loss. This scheme furnished the basis of the State debt under which
Vol. 1-6
82
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
Illinois labored for many years and which, at its maximum, reached nearly $17,000,000."
Although as a whole the internal improvements seheme was a dis- aster to the state as a promoter of publie works, it was the means of furthering the projeet of a great railroad to be built through central Illinois from north to south, it eventually materialized into one of the splendid railroad systems of the country, being kept alive through private promotion and management. It meant much to Adams County, as will be seen hereafter.
CAPITAL MOVED TO SPRINGFIELD
It was at the same session which originated the internal improve- ments seheme that the Legislature voted to move the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield, Sangamon County. Jacksonville, Peoria and Alton were also competitors. Lineoln led the Sangamon County delegation to victory, its solid support of internal improvements hing- ing largely on the outside backing received as a candidate for the state capital. The legislative act by which the removal was accom- plished went into effect July 4, 1839, and the Legislature convened at the new capitol in Deeember of that year.
REMAINS OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS SYSTEM
In 1840 the Legislature abolished the Board of Fund Commis- sioners and the Board of Publie Works which had in charge the in- ternal improvements of the state and that loose-jointed system col- lapsed. One fund commissioner was then appointed who was author- ized to aet, but was without power to sell bonds or to borrow money on the eredit of the state. Another Board of Publie Works was also created, which, with the fund commissioner, was to wind up pending business without delay, to operate any roads which were near com- pletion, complete the work on the Illinois & Michigan Canal and burn all bonds remaining unsold.
The Great Northern Cross Railroad, which was planned to be constructed from Springfield to Quiney, half way across the state to the Mississippi River, had actually been built from the state capi- tal to Meredosia, Morgan County, on the eastern bank of the Illinois River, fifty-eight miles distant. This road, which became a part of the Wabash system, was sold in 1847 to Nicholas H. Ridgly of Spring- field for about $21,000.
After the defeat of the convention in 1824 nothing was done toward reviving or amending the state constitution until 1840-41. In the Legislature of that year a resolution was adopted ealling on the voters to express themselves relative to a convention at the coming state election in August. The democrats favored such a convention, but when a bill passed the Legislature abolishing the Cirenit Court judges and ereating five new judges on the Supreme beneh, all of which
83
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
places were filled by democrats, the need of a convention did not seem so apparent.
The democrats now controlled the Legislature, the executive and the courts. When the election was held in Angust the democrats generally voted against the proposition to hold a convention : but the whigs later passed another act calling on the people to vote on the question of convention at the general election in August, 1846. The proposition was strongly urged upon the people by the democratic press and it was not very generally opposed, and so it carried.
CONSTITUTION OF 1848
The aet providing for the constitutional convention determined the number of delegates which should sit therein, the date of their election, which was fixed for the third Monday in April, 1847, and the date of the meeting of the delegates in the convention, the first Monday in June, 1847. There was no special argument against a convention, but several were urged in its favor.
There were a number of other changes which were considered dnr- ing the canvass preceding the election in April. When the members came together June 7, 1847, it was found that the whigs and demo- crats were about evenly divided. The convention organized by eleet- ing Newton Cloud president and Henry W. Moore secretary. There were 162 delegates in this body.
In the legislative department the following features may be noted in the constitution of 1848: No member of the General Assembly shall be elected to any other office during his term as a legislator. The Senate shall consist of twenty-five members and the House of seventy- tive members till the state shall contain 1.000,000 people. After that an addition of five in each House shall be made for every increase of 500,000 until there shall be 50 senators and 100 representatives. when the number shall remain stationary.
The governor must be a citizen of the l'nited States and thirty- five years of age, shall be a citizen of the United States fourteen years and have resided in the state ten years. The governor must reside at the seat of government. He shall have the veto power. His salary was $1,500-no more. The secretary of state, auditor and treas- urer shall be elected at the same time as the governor and lieutenant- governor are chosen. The governor shall issue all commissions.
The constitution was completed on August 31. 1847. On March 6. 1848, it was submitted to the people for ratification. The vote on the constitution stood nearly 60,000 for and nearly 16,000 against. It was declared in force April 1, 1848. By the terms of the document it- self an election should be held on Tuesday after the first Monday in November, 1848. for governor and other executive officers, as well as for members of the Legislature. In compliance therewith, in Novem- ber, 1848. Governor French was re-elected governor for four years from January 1. 1849.
84
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
The new constitution authorized the Legislature to provide for township organization. In pursuanee thereof a law was passed in 1849 which allowed counties, when authorized by a vote of the people, to organize under this new system. This new system of county organ- ization is distinctly a New England product, and was therefore championed by the northern counties, which had been largely settled by immigrants from New England and the Middle States. The Legis- lature on February 12, 1849, passed a general law governing all eoun- ties under township organization. This first law was somewhat imper- feet, and has therefore been subject to amendments up to the present time.
LEGISLATIVE LESSONS THROUGH EXPERIENCE
In the thirty years which had passed since the adoption of its first constitution, the State of Illinois had learned several lessons through the impressive process of distressing experienee. Perhaps the most im- portant thus instilled were those connected with reekless expansion of the financial institutions and the public utilities within her borders. Under the constitution of 1818 the credit of the state might be used to foster such enterprises as banks, railroads and canals. But the constitution of 1848 says: "No State bank shall hereafter be created, nor shall the State own or be liable for any stoek in any corporation or joint stock association for banking purposes to be hereafter ereated." It was not possible, therefore, for the state to engage in any banking business or improvement schemes, but it might grant charters, or pass laws, in the encouragement of such enterprises. Further safeguards are thrown around the state, as witness this provision : "No aet of the General Assembly, authorizing corporations or associations with banking powers, shall go into effect or in any manner be enforeed, unless the same shall be submitted to the people at the general election next succeeding the passage of the same, and be approved by a majority of the votes cast at sneh election for and against sueh law." Another seetion of the same article (X) provides that all stockholders in bank- ing associations issuing bank notes should be individually responsible proportionately to the stoek held by each for all liabilities of the corporation or association. Sinee the winding up of the affairs of the old State Bank and the Bank of Illinois there were no banks of issue in the state. The money in eirculation comprised gold and silver and paper money issued by banks in other states.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.