USA > Illinois > The era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 > Part 24
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The advocates of orthodox education and the supporters of the existing colleges continued to wage an unrelenting war on this proposition. Many lukewarm advocates of educa- tional reform, moreover, were satisfied with the educational legislation of 1854 and 1855 and, with excitement increasing over slavery, shifted their interest to this new field. Some champions of the common people tellingly pointed out that the industrial league had a "monstrous scheme" which would stratify class lines and permit the favored few to be trained to do the thinking of the nation, while the masses, the " com- mon trash," would be trained for the performance of their drudgery. Many denominational school teachers argued that the state was "incompetent to control the subject of educa- tion," that this was the function of the church.26 Others like State Superintendent Edwards ignored the federal land grant proposition and objected to the use of state funds as involving heavy taxation, since the college and seminary funds had
25 Illinois Journal, June 9, 1852, February 18, 1853; Carriel, Life of Turner, 104, 110-III; Free West, November 2, 1854; Prairie Farmer, May, 1855. Bron- son Murray of Ottawa, who was president of the Third Industrial Convention at Chicago, had suggested the organization of the league and generously con- tributed to its support. Yates to Turner, June 25, 1852, April 14, 1854, Turner manuscripts. See Turner and Murray manuscripts.
26 Macoupin Statesman clipped in Ottawa Weekly Republican, December 30, 1854. The Joliet Signal, however, dropped its support of the industrial uni- versity because it feared that the advantages would be restricted to the wealthy as it could not accommodate more than four hundred or five hundred students, Illinois State Register, February 9, 1854. George Lumsden to Murray, February 16, 1853, in Carriel, Life of Turner, 131-133.
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already been borrowed by the state and used for other pur- poses. Some opponents professed to be opposed not to the proposition per se but to the employment of state funds upon a mere experiment. The Chicago Democrat was warmly inter- ested in agricultural education but urged a totally different scheme; it proposed an agricultural college supported by an endowment of scholarships given by farmers, in sums of one hundred or one hundred and fifty dollars ; two thousand scholar- ships would provide an annual income of $14,000, "a sum fully capable of sustaining an able and sufficient corps of pro- fessors in all the branches of science relating to agriculture, and of defraying existing expenses." 27 A Northern Illinois Agricultural College was chartered on February 12, 1853, by a group of Putnam county backers, but the proposition fell stillborn.
All these forces combined to make the local situation unfavorable for action by the state government. After 1856 less popular discussion took place, although Turner and his friends continued their activities. The new republican governor, William Bissell, in his message of January, 1857, displayed a favorable attitude toward the future establishment of an agri- cultural university. Interest, however, was now transferred to the national government, where the effort was to secure federal aid. The aid of a large number of educators, journal- ists, and politicians throughout the country had been enlisted in support of the scheme; a definite league was now organized to bring pressure to bear upon congress. In order to avoid encountering the ill-feeling of easterners, who had already come to regard with dismay the large grants to western states for school and other purposes, it seemed wise to arrange for the introduction of the proposition by an eastern representative. For this reason Representative Morrill of Vermont was induced to father a land grant measure for the endowment of an agri- cultural college in every state in the union. Its advocates had the disappointment of seeing the bill pass both houses of con- gress, only to meet the veto of President Buchanan on Feb-
27 Prairie Farmer, January, 1855; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, January 9, 15, 23, 1855; Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 15, September 16, 1854, July 28, 1855; Private Laws of 1853, 407-410.
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ruary 26, 1859. Three years later, with the nation torn by civil discord, the measure was again carried through congress and became law with President Lincoln's signature on July 2, 1862. So long a time had elapsed, however, since the project had first taken form that few of the participants in the legis- lation connected this important measure with the tireless activity of Jonathan B. Turner in the early fifties in behalf of an Illinois industrial university. Such, however, was the origin of a measure which has determined the nature of a large number of the higher educational institutions of this country; it was an "Illinois idea," or, as John A. Kennicott enthusiastically declared after its introduction in congress, "Illinois thunder." 28
With this period of Illinois history came other refinements of modern civilization. Encouraging signs began to appear in the religious life in the state. The total number of churches had increased by 1850 to 1,223 and in the next decade exactly doubled, although the value of church property increased more than fourfold. The Chicago of 1850, with twenty-six institu- tions representing almost every denomination from Catholic to Swedenborgian, freethinkers to orthodox Jews, was known as the "city of churches." At the end of another decade the city had 61 Protestant churches with an attendance of over ten thousand, besides 59 sabbath schools and 3 1 mission schools. Quincy, a city of seven thousand, had 16 churches with 2 others in contemplation. Galesburg with a population of about five thousand in 1855 had 9 churches; three Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Congregational, one Universalist, one Lutheran, one Methodist, and one Swedish Methodist.29
Every denomination had a proportionate share in this growth with the exception of the Baptists and Presbyterians, who, however, with sixty per cent increases were able to retain their respective second and third places. The Methodists,
28 Turner to Trumbull, October 7, 1857, Kennicott to Trumbull, January 25, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts; Trumbull to Turner, October 19, 1857, Turner manuscripts. It was first introduced December 14, 1857, Congressional Globe, 35 congress, I session, 32, 36-37.
29 Chicago Democrat, September 19, 1848, May 4, 1849; Chicago Daily Journal clipped in Illinois State Register, December 25, 1849; Presbytery Reporter, 5: 128. Eight hundred and ten dollars was paid for a single pew in the Second Presbyterian church of Chicago, Western Citizen, December 31, 1850. See also Quincy Whig, March 9, 1852; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, April 15, 1856.
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increasing the number of their churches from 405 to 881 with a membership of nearly one hundred thousand in 1860, main- tained their lead. Methodism in the west, however, still suffered from the neglect of the central organization; not a bishop, newspaper, or book-room had been provided by the General Conference for the Mississippi valley. The Illinois Conference recovered, however, from the slump of the forties and with the younger Rock River Conference enjoyed an active existence. The denomination was still influenced by the untiring energy and uncompromising antislavery conviction of its great leader, Peter Cartwright.30
The Baptists of the state, doubling in number in the decade, continued to be the radical force they had been in previous decades, even though the new generation of leaders showed no names comparable to those of James Lemen and John Mason Peck. In spite of strong southern ties, the church showed a pronounced antislavery leaning, which, together with an aggressive part in the temperance agitation of the day, continued to make a strong appeal to the democratic yeoman of Illinois. The Baptist organ, the Western Christian, pub- lished at Elgin but removed to New York about 1850, had a wide influence ; it was radical, reformative in spirit, and demo- cratic. The Christian churches, that most typical and at the same time most unique expression of the western pioneer spirit in religion, increased from 69 in 1850 to 148 in 1860; enthu- siasm was inspired by the western tour in 1853 of the Reverend Alexander Campbell, the founder of the denomination, who filled a large number of Illinois appointments. 31
The Presbyterians by their divisions gained attention which offset the energy lost in dissension. . The radical wings estab- lished their devotion to freedom without challenge, although at times small groups left the denomination entirely because of the bitterness of their reactions. The census of 1860 re- turned 43 Cumberland, 18 Reformed, and 27 United churches as against 272 in the main camp. The total membership of all groups was 15,810.
30 Minutes of the Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 4 : 486-490, 524-529 ; 5: 654-659; Free West, May 31, 1855.
31 Alton Courier, October 31, November 1, 1853; Moses, Illinois, 2 : 1077-1078
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The heavy influx of the New England element brought numbers of Congregationalists into Illinois. In the thirties an agreement between eastern Congregationalists and the Presbyterians had arranged for the affiliation of Illinois Con- gregationalists with Presbyterian institutions; after a time, however, the Congregationalists abandoned this policy and began to establish congregations under their own name. The number of churches increased in a decade from 46 to 140; this registers the important growth in the northern tier of counties through which the membership more than doubled and reached the figure of 12,849. Not until April, 1851, was a Congregational church established in Chicago; then the first in the city was organized by the repudiated antislavery majority of the Third Presbyterian Church, most of whom had New England Congregational antecedents. Two other congrega- tions were organized in Chicago during the decade. The Illinois association remained a sturdy upholder of orthodoxy in religion, if not in politics, and in 1859 excommunicated Reverend J. Mason of Hamilton for denying the doctrine of the trinity and the eternity of future punishment.32 Members of this denomination were reached by the Congregational Herald of Chicago.
The strength of the Lutherans lay largely in the Germans and Scandinavians who settled in and around Chicago and Illinoistown.33 Chicago added a Swedish Lutheran church in 1853 to the German and Norwegian congregations formed a half dozen years earlier. Some members of these Lutheran groups, however, withdrew to support Evangelical churches.
The Episcopal church maintained only a few dozen clergy- men in the state in 1850, under the supervision of the pio- neer Bishop Philander Chase; Chase died in 1852 at Jubilee College after having seen the parishes of his diocese increase from six to fifty-two. Five of the churches were located in the city of Chicago, one of them in a Scandinavian parish.
32 Illinois State Register, January 6, 1860. Jonathan B. Turner in the same year accepted the challenge of the Reverend James C. Richmond of Milwaukee to defend Congregationalism against the doctrines of the Episcopal church. Chicago Press and Tribune, May 24, 1859.
33 William H. Pickering to Gillespie, July 20, 1860, Gillespie manuscripts.
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Bishop Chase was succeeded by Henry J. Whitehouse, who had been assistant bishop for a year. About fifty-two clergymen were in active service in the state in 1860, with forty-six churches numbering 3,070 communicants. The church was not in a healthy condition; several parishes including Palestine, Grove, Beardstown, Peoria, and Edwardsville, had to be stricken from the roll as deficient; several large rural parishes were vacant; and a heated controversy was waging between Bishop Whitehouse and low church critics who attacked him as "teaching Tractarian and Semi Romish Errors." 34 In 1858 the low church party set up an organ in Chicago, the Western Churchman, to combat the influence of the official publication, the Chicago Herald.
The Catholic church was gaining steadily in the larger cities from the heavy immigration of Irish and foreign Cath- olics. The Right Reverend James Oliver Van de Velde was installed as successor to Bishop William Quarter as bishop of Chicago in 1848, but gave way five years later to Bishop Anthony O'Reagan; neither of these, however, aroused the enthusiastic cooperation of the clergy or laity. The see of Quincy was established in 1852, followed in 1857 by the erec- tion of the episcopate of Alton. At the close of the decade the Catholics established the Western Banner as their organ at Chicago.
Contrary to expectations, the less orthodox and more liberal denominations were showing, especially in the Yankee settle- ments, some ability to move westward with the pioneer. Eight Unitarian groups with four churches existed in 1850 and seven Universalists; the New Covenant, a successful Universalist publication, was established at Chicago in 1848. By 1860 liberal religion had spread in the cities to an extent that eleven Unitarian35 and thirty Universalist churches were located by the census enumerators.
Religious activity, however, was largely confined to the
34 Smith, Life of Philander Chase, 339-340; Aurora Beacon, October 25, 1860; Illinois State Register, July 27, 1854; Chicago Record, November 1, 1858; Church Record, January 1, September 15, October 1, 1859, August 15, Novem- ber 1, 1860.
35 Alton Courier, October 22, December 13, 1853; Illinois State Journal, July 1, 1857.
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towns and cities. In the smaller communities there were often no church edifices and the various congregations alternated in the use of some public building. In Beardstown, the court- house was the common place of worship; the Episcopalians conducted their services in the morning, the Presbyterians wor- shipped in the afternoon, while the Methodists took their turn in the evening; it was noted that about the same constituency was present at each meeting. A church at Joliet was occupied alternately by the Universalists and the Baptists. In other places societies labored zealously to secure funds for their own houses of worship. An occasional congregation was distin- guished by the possession of a parsonage. Regularly educated and well-trained ministers were very rare in the west; gener- ally speaking there was always a shortage of ministers, partly because of the expanding field of activity and partly because the rural congregations of the western states were almost con- tinually in arrears with the salaries of their pastors. Many congregations were wholly without provision for regular preaching; but the humble and zealous itinerant preacher, the pioneer in the work of evangelizing the frontier, reached a large constituency by going his round among the sparse popula- tion. Dr. Cartwright, the quaint and fearless pioneer clergy- man, was at the age of seventy years still stationed at Spring- field, duplicating some of the feats of his prime. On one occa- sion he rode through almost incessant rain for ninety-four miles, preached to numerous congregations, and "received as quar- terage 'fifteen cents,' and by way of table expenses, a dozen large apples." Since the great mass of the community were never seen inside of the churches, Chicago Methodists com- missioned a city missionary to return to apostolic usages; soon an extensive system of street preaching was organized.36
A more far-reaching remedy was the provision of facilities for the education of a supply of specially trained religious
36 Illinois State Register, April 28, 1853; Illinois State Historical Society, Transactions, 1901, p. 61-62. The West Urbana Congregationalists granted the use of their new church to the Baptists on Sunday afternoon and later shared their minister with the new school Presbyterian congregation. Graff, The Record of Fifty Years, 9. Church Record, December 1, 15, 1859; Illinois Journal, December 28, 1848; Christian Review clipped in Ottawa Free Trader, March 22, 1851; Chicago Democrat, August 22, 1859; Autobiography of Peter Cartwright.
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leaders. The Northwestern Biblical Institute at Evanston, later the Garrett Institute, was inaugurated by the Methodists, January 1, 1855; 37 and after a few years it was attached to Northwestern University. The Chicago Theological Seminary was organized under Congregational auspices in 1854 and for- mally opened in October, 1858, while the Presbyterians in 1857 incorporated and erected Blackburn Theological Semi- nary at Carlinville; in 1859 McCormick Theological Seminary was located at Chicago. New school Presbyterians of the northwestern states started a project for a theological seminary at Galena which, like a proposition for a Baptist theological seminary for the northwest, bore no immediate fruit.
The Young Men's Christian Association made its way into Illinois during this period. The association was organized in Springfield in 1853 and soon had desultory beginnings in Peoria, Chicago, Quincy, and Rockford. The Chicago Asso- ciation, permanently organized in 1858, provided a free read- ing room and arranged a series of lectures for each winter. This movement was greatly strengthened by taking advantage of a decided tendency upon the part of the young men of the cities to organize for their intellectual and moral improvement.
The large field for missionary work in Illinois was recog- nized by all religious denominations, most of which had for- mally accredited representatives in this field. The American Home Missions Society and the American Missionary Asso- ciation had their agents in Illinois, but the positions were unattractive because of inadequate compensation. The mis- sionaries, moreover, worked almost entirely in communities of fair size and left the rural regions practically untouched.38 These were reached, however, by the agents of the American Bible Society and by the colporteurs sent out by the American Tract Society.
Local Bible societies were formed in the cities in the period after 1840 when the Chicago society was organized; active work, however, came largely in the period after 1848, com- mencing in the northern portion of the state. Before 1860
37 Chicago Weekly Democrat, January 6, 1855.
38 Reverend Joseph Gordon, the Presbyterian missionary for the Alton presbytery in one year preached 136 sermons, converted 25 new members, and traveled, 5,574 miles. Presbytery Reporter, 3: 503; cf. ibid., 4:74.
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one hundred and six county Bible societies and eight hundred branch societies had been organized under the direction of Amasa Lord, general agent for the state; they acted through about 5,000 agents who without pay made personal visits to every house in their respective districts carrying the Bible with them.39 Illinois was the second or third state in the Bible cause. Remittances from Illinois to the central treasury of the society were nearly equal to the total remittances of the six surrounding states; over $40,000 per annum was raised in the state by donations and sales.
In a somewhat different fashion the American Tract Society through its paid agents reached into the state from outside. The colporteurs dealt with precisely the same condi- tions as the agents of the Bible Society but attempted a some- what more intimate religious contact with the people, making what were in many cases practically pastoral visits, the time being occupied in religious exhortation often accompanied with prayer. A sincere effort was often made to check intemper- ance, sabbath breaking, and general tendencies toward immor- ality; Illinoisians, however, frequently resented the highly colored tales of prevailing immorality and religious indiffer- ence that colporteurs incorporated in their letters to eastern publications.40
Although violent religious emotionalism was becoming more and more rare, the camp meeting and revival continued; in the closing weeks of the dreary Illinois winter, revival meetings began to be held in almost every country meeting house to continue until the arrival of Easter. It was an annual event on the religious calendar of the state. In the early part of 1858, however, an unusual spiritual awakening was per- ceptible throughout the country. Revival meetings attracted an unusual community wide interest, and a remarkable number of conversions was reported. Large daily union prayer meet- ings were held at Springfield, at Canton, at Metropolitan Hall in Chicago, and in other places. The freedom from sectarian- ism and the perfect cordiality with which the preachers and laymen of the different churches labored seemed remarkable;
39 Belleville Advocate, March 25, 1857; Rockford Register, March 10, 1860. 40 Illinois State Register, May 12, 1853.
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another feature was the freedom from the extravagancies and the wild excitement that had usually attended such awakenings. Only in the little community of Avoca did the meetings produce the phenomenon known since the beginning of western revivals as the "jerks;" there about a hundred young persons were affected, producing the most ludicrous scenes. "Just imagine," said an eyewitness, "forty or fifty persons going through all the different postures, twistings, bendings, strikings, kickings, and other violent motions of which the human frame is capable, together with occasional barking and other unusual sounds, and you will have a faint idea of the scene exhibited here night after night." 41 When the general excitement was over and the statistics were calculated, it was found that Illinois with 10,460 converts was second only to New York in its share in the great awakening.
41 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, March 16, 1858; see New York Courier and Enquirer clipped in Illinois State Journal, June 9, 1858.
XI. THE APPEAL TO ARMS
L INCOLN'S election was interpreted by southern fire eaters as a defiance of their threats to withdraw the planting states from the union in order to work out southern nationality in a separate confederacy. Disappointed democrats in Illinois could not forbear pointing out the phases of republican policy which seemed to justify an aggressive move from the south to protect its rights. "It is not worth while to conceal the fact, that the North is hopelessly abolitionized," declared the Belle- ville Democrat. " To submit then, or secede, is forced upon the South. Thus far, they have justice and right
on their side. We cannot see how they will in- gloriously submit." 1 Even the State Register seemed to take the position set up by the southern disunionists that a state had the right to secede without infringing seriously any of the powers delegated in the constitution, while sympathy with the secession idea was especially strong in the southern counties. The Cairo Gazette sought to clear up all misunderstanding by announcing : "The statement that the inhabitants of Egypt are in favor of the perpetuation of the Union by force, is unauthor- ized. No such feeling exists. On the contrary, so far as our observations have extended, the sympathies of our people are mainly with the South." Since there was considerable evidence that the south was already putting into practice a non inter- course policy, the Gazette stopped to consider the effect of secession upon the future of Cairo and arrived at the conclu- sion that it would prosper whether the union was dissolved or not.2
Some republicans were prepared to support Greeley's rec- ommendation to "let the erring sisters depart in peace." To
1 Belleville Democrat clipped in Belleville Weekly Advocate, November 16, 1860; see also Ottarsa Free Trader, December 8, 29, 1860.
2 Illinois State Journal, November 21, 1860; Cairo Gazette, December 6, 20, 1860.
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certain admirers of fundamental democracy, the south seemed to be claiming the rights of small nations to self-government; coercion, therefore, whether of the state or of individuals involved an offense to the conscience of the American people, which, according to the Rockford Register, "would be found to be as much opposed to the exercise of arbitrary power over a subjugated province, as they are to the transformation of this government into a slave-holding despotism. If a separation must come, let it be a peaceful one. Let all states that delib- erately desire to go out of the Union, be permitted to do so in peace." 3 Such a radical antislavery man as the Reverend G. W. Bassett of Ottawa, issued a pamphlet entitled " A North- ern plea for the right of secession " in which he maintained the "absolute and unqualified right of the people of any State of this Union to dissolve their political connections with the Gen- eral Government whenever they chose." The Belleville Advocate would have been willing to relieve the union of the petulance of South Carolina and of the financial encum- brance of Florida, but, "believing it unwise and dangerous to admit in practice what we deny in theory," the best policy seemed to be to require those states to obey the will of the nation.4
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