USA > Illinois > The era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 > Part 41
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Whether this was spiritual degeneracy or the finest religious ecstacy, at any rate all denominations greeted the return of peace with an outpouring of old-time religion. Early in Janu- ary and February, 1866, the meetings, followed by wholesale conversions, began and continued throughout the year. Never since the great revivals of 1858 had so many come to inquire, " what must we do to be saved ?" At Springfield, which became the center of this great awakening with meetings at the state capitol and noon prayer meetings in the ward schoolhouses, the clergy, in October, called upon the people of the state to join in a five days prayer meeting to invoke "an outpouring of the Holy spirit upon the churches and people throughout the State." 11 The result was a great gathering of christians which aroused tremendous enthusiasm. All denominations made great gains during this bonanza year.
In contrast to the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Christians, who quietly persisted along old lines of prog- ress, was the internal strife that beset the other large denomi- nations. Efforts were made to calm the conflicting forces tear-
9 Chicago Times, October 12, 21, 1863; Belleville Democrat, October 17, November 7, 1863.
10 Cairo Democrat, October 22, 1863. More complaint was made in 1866 when the Illinois Methodist conference bitterly arraigned President Johnson on political grounds. Belleville Democrat, October 13, 1866; Ottawa Weekly Republican, October 18, 1866; Chicago Tribune, October 31, 1866.
11 This meeting had been called after consultation with representatives of all evangelical denominations throughout the state. Illinois State Register, April 11, 14, 1866; Chicago Evening Journal, May 10, 1866; Joliet Signal, October 30, 1866; Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1866; Ottawa Weekly Republican, November 15, 1866.
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ing at the vitals of Presbyterianism. In 1865 even the old school synod for northern Illinois ratified the action of the General Assembly in refusing fellowship with unrepentant clergymen and laymen who had participated in the rebellion and who considered slavery a divine institution.12 The next year Cyrus H. McCormick, an influential layman, began his labors to bring about a reunion of the northern and southern wings ; the most definite response came from a southern Illinois Presbyterian convention at Centralia early in 1868, attended by representatives of the old school, new school, and the united and reformed branches, which approved of the so-called "Phil- adelphia basis" of union. In 1869 the question of reuniting the "new" and "old school" Presbyterians, after a division of thirty years, was decided affirmatively by the presby- teries. 13
In the meantime the Episcopal diocese of Illinois was torn by the struggle between the high churchmen led by the rigid disciplinarian, Bishop Whitehouse, and the low church party which objected both to extremes of ritualism and to the introduction of cathedral worship. A climax was reached when the Reverend Charles E. Cheney of Chicago, a spokes- man of the liberal forces, was severely disciplined before the bishop's court, although the case was later reviewed in Cheney's favor in a civil court. Out of this controversy grew the organi- zation of the Reformed Episcopal Church under the leader- ship of Associate Bishop David Cummins of Kentucky, first known to Chicagoans through an anti-ritualistic sermon which he delivered during the controversy.14
The Catholics made progress in spite of the contentions that developed under the later years of Bishop Duggan's administration. Over one-half of the population of Chicago was Catholic; yet this included almost entirely persons of foreign birth or parentage since the increase was largely the result of immigration. One of the problems of the church was to Americanize the congregations; the Irish, however,
12 Galena Gazette, October 24, clipped in Chicago Tribune, October 27, 1865. 13 Chicago Evening Journal, May 16, 1866; Jacksonville Journal, March 2, 1868; Ottawa Free Trader, November 13, 1869.
14 Chicago Tribune, July 15, 22, 29, August 4, 1869; Belleville Advocate, June 18, 1869; Andreas, History of Chicago, 2 : 412-415 ; 3:786-789.
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often objected to the assignment of a priest who was not himself an Irishman.
The Catholics labored not only under the difficulty of internal heterogeneity but also of external criticism. In 1867 considerable anti-Catholic feeling developed in Illinois when the Reverend J. G. White of Jacksonville, a fearless cham- pion of protestantism, went about the state lecturing on "Ro- manism." In Quincy he was disturbed at his first lecture and actually prevented by a hostile mob from delivering the rest of his series there. Mayor Pitman, a democrat, was appealed to for protection but he instructed the city marshal to prevent the lecture; Governor Oglesby, however, declared that the right of free speech should be maintained. White as well as several other "radical" protestant ministers continued to give his lectures in the following years with the result that disturb- ances took place at Bloomington in 1868 and Springfield in 1869.15
In general, however, the spirit of toleration was abroad. When colonies of Mormons appeared in various parts of northern Illinois they were allowed to carry on their affairs without interference; hundreds of Mormons returned to the region of Nauvoo; and Joseph Smith, the younger, passed the closing years of his life as the Illinois leader at Plano, Kendall county. The liberal sects, like the Unitarians and Universal- ists, grew in strength and went their way unchallenged. Citi- zens of Du Quoin took pride in the fact that one of the local churches opened its doors to an "infidel lecturer," for a series of ten lectures; and among the advantages of their city they held none so priceless as the "enlarged views, or liber- ality of our citizens. It makes little difference here whether a man is Mohammedan, Christian or a Jew; Democrat Conservative, moderate or radical Republican, so long as he goes upon his own way." 1 Into the liberal atmos- phere of such a state Lincoln's views on religion could be injected without much of a shock. Early in 1870 at a time when there was considerable current discussion as to Lin-
15 Jacksonville Journal, April 26, 1867; Quincy Whig, April 24, 1867; Chi- cago Tribune, April 27, 1867, July 28, 1868, March 29, 1869; Canton Weekly Register, April 3, 1868; Ottawa Weekly Republican, August 26, 1869.
16 Du Quoin Tribune, March 31, 1870.
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coln's views, W. H. Herndon, his law partner, issued a lengthy newspaper statement on the matter. Lincoln he declared " did not believe in a special creation, he did not believe that the Bible was a special revelation from God,
he did not believe in miracles, he did not believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, as the christian world contends." Lincoln was, he explained, a theist living in his moments of melancholy and gloom "on the bor- derland between theism and atheism." "I maintain that Mr. Lincoln was a deeply religious man at all times and places, in spite of his transient doubts," he declared. The fact that few were impressed with any incompatibility in the statement is a striking instance of growing tolerance.
One of the most significant moral educational issues of the late sixties was the question of woman's rights, which the Civil War revived in a more practical form than had ever appeared in Illinois-one in which forward-looking preachers were glad to cooperate with such assailants of revealed religion as Robert Ingersoll. At the outbreak of war the abstract question was abandoned while the "gentler sex" turned its energies into constructive work in the cause of the union; and after years of hard toil in the fields, in shops, in hospitals, and in relief work, the women felt that they had indeed earned a claim to consideration in the civil life of the state equal to that of the liberated Negro. Pioneer women editors, preach- ers, and physicians, emissaries from the east, appeared to demonstrate the ability of women to compete with the men for their traditional monopolies. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, the author and reformer, was the active agent in the editing of her husband's New Covenant, the Universalist organ; she travelled to the hospitals and camps of the Missis- sippi valley as representative of the United States Sanitary Commission and in many ways prepared for her career as a woman's suffrage lecturer. Meantime Mrs. Myra Bradwell, as editor of the Chicago Legal News, and Mrs. Mary L. Walker, of the Sorosis and later the Agitator, became active propagandists for the cause of equal rights.
The new issue first gained recognition in 1867 and 1869 when state laws were enacted protecting married women in
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their property rights. Then, in spite of considerable objec- tion, the trustees of the Illinois Industrial University on March 8, 1870, finally voted to permit the registration of women stu- dents. In February, 1870, after Governor Palmer, on account of legal obstacles, rejected the application of Mrs. Bradwell to be appointed a notary public, Mrs. Amelia Hobbs, probably the first woman chosen to hold office in Illinois, was elected a justice of the peace in Jersey county.17
It was commonly believed, however, that the caucus was not a fitting field for woman's endeavors, though women as well as men were ready to ask whether there was any ground in reason or justice why they should not vote.18 In November, 1867, Susan B. Anthony, in coming to Illinois for a series of lectures which aroused wide interest, initiated an active suffrage propaganda that was aided in later years by Mary A. Livermore, Anna Dickinson, and other pioneers of the move- ment. The Illinois advocates of suffrage included Kate M. Doggett, Dr. Mary J. Safford, and Mrs. C. T. F. Stringer, and among the men, Judge C. B. Waite, Judge James B. Brad- well, Robert Ingersoll, as well as a number of clergymen. Soon woman suffrage associations were founded in various parts of the state; Judge Bradwell became chairman of the Illinois Woman Suffrage Association which conducted an active cam- paign to secure the elective franchise for women in the next constitutional convention. Strong local organizations were formed in all the large cities in the early months of 1870; and a state suffrage convention at Springfield, February 8-9, addressed an appeal to the constitutional convention to deal " as justly and fairly with the women of the State as by the negroes of the State." 19 Yet although the republicans toyed with the suffrage question, the only clear-cut indorsement received from any political group was from the Irish republican national convention at Chicago in July, 1869.20 This, how- ever, had little significance, and in the convention the woman
17 Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1869; Champaign County Union and Gazette, February 23, 1870.
18 E. C. Larned to Trumbull, March 10, 1866, Trumbull manuscripts.
19 Illinois State Register, February 8, 10, 1870; Illinois State Journal, Febru- ary 10, 1870.
20 Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1869.
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suffrage movement was consigned to the realm of futile propaganda.
More formal education was making progress upon the foundations laid in the fifties. The opportunity for education was eagerly embraced, and school attendance nearly doubled in the decade; some there were who would completely democra- tize the school system on the principle of compulsory educa- tion. Though this proposal was in advance of the times, in general champions of education now found their labors as easy as they had been difficult a dozen years before; it was a simple matter to secure from the constitutional convention of 1862 a satisfactory article on education and suggestions by Superintendent of Public Instruction Newton Bateman were placed before the convention of 1870 with every probability of a fair and favorable consideration.21
The more important gains came in securing physical con- ditions favorable to a greater degree of educational efficiency. The little red schoolhouse had had its day; and, with a steady reduction in the number of skeptics, the "big schoolhouse" policy adopted in Chicago several years before became general throughout the cities of the state. The increase of facilities, however, could scarcely keep pace with the new demand. Chi- cago in one year expended $341,145 for providing additional school accommodations, yet the enrollment increased so that "we are relatively worse off now than we were a year ago " 22 __ even though in order to furnish educational opportunities to those unable to attend day sessions, several free night schools were inaugurated. In 1869 the Chicago board of education went to the legislature to secure authorization for a loan of $850,000 to build additional schoolhouses; and when, to quiet the complaint of extravagance it reduced its request to $500,- 000 it was with the proviso that no schoolhouse costing more than fifteen thousand dollars should be built until all the children in the city should be provided with school accommodations.
Jacksonville, with very generous provision for the educa-
21 Journal of the Constitutional Convention, 1862, p. 766, 1093; Chicago Tribune, July 30, 1867.
22 Ibid., October 20, 1865, April 27, 1868, January 14, 18, 1869.
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tional interests of the city, continued to live up to its reputation as the "Athens of the west," while Alton public schools attained an excellency that rendered private schools unprofit- able.23 Cairo discarded the "wretched rookery " worth only $400, which had been made to provide accommodation for eighty pupils; and within three years by substituting two splen- did three-story brick structures and a spacious one-story frame building, caring for the educational needs of eight hundred children, the young city felt entitled to boast of one of the best public school systems in the northwest.24 Belleville, although providing efficient instruction, could not display a single school building; the children were taught in "underground caverns [church basements ] and rickety shanties." The Illinois Teacher boldly scored Belleville and Bloomington as disgracefully negligent in school accommodations.25
Among the teachers a growing professionalization was evi- dent; county and state associations and institutes were man- aged with considerable smoothness, and a southern Illinois edu- cational association was organized in 1868 with one of its purposes to agitate in favor of a southern Illinois normal school. The compensation for teaching was utterly inade- quate; in spite of the fact that a six-month school session was the rule, and in the face of the war-time prices, salaries of $30 and $40 a month were common. One school director "made himself a name in history" by engaging a woman for the highest wages ever paid by his district to a man teacher, $30 a month. Cairo, it is true, paid wages of $100 to $150 to its male administrator teachers and $40 to $60 to the women, but the average monthly wage in 1868 was $42.40 for men and $32.80 for women.26
Much credit for improvement in the efficiency of the school system is due to Newton Bateman, who with only a two-year
23 Norton, Resources of Alton in 1873, p. 28.
24 Cairo Gazette, June 4, 1863 ; Cairo Democrat, November 14, 1864, Novem- ber 13, 1866, September 10, December 4, 1867.
25 Illinois Teacher clipped in Belleville Advocate, March 18, 1864.
26 Nine month schools appealed to many as offering an opportunity to secure better teachers. Du Quoin Tribune, July 16, 1868, March 24, 1870; Cairo Democrat, November 14, 1866, May 15, 1868; Jonesboro Gazette, December 5, 1868; Belleville Advocate, August 6, 1869; Cairo Evening Bulletin, January 18, 1869; Rockford Gazette, February 18, 1869.
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interruption served as state superintendent of public instruc- tion for fourteen years between 1859 and 1875; his seven biennial reports constitute one of the chief sources of the knowledge of the early educational development of this state. For three years he served as editor of The Illinois Teacher and was one of a committee of three which prepared the bill adopted by congress creating the national bureau of education.
Higher education underwent considerable improvement in the Civil War decade. High schools became more common, although a few communities like Decatur could be found with- out either high school, academy, or seminary. Almost all the colleges of the state weathered the trials of the days when the students left the class room for the battlefield; and when, as in the case of Quincy College, even the school building was requisitioned by the government for use as a hospital. Politics in college made headway under war conditions : sometimes tense feelings gave rise to complicated situations, as when a pro- fessor of Eureka College ordered a student to remove a demo- cratic badge and was sustained by his colleagues only to be forced to retract when the expulsion of twenty-seven students was followed by the withdrawal of as many more.27
The State Normal University went through the decade in a flourishing condition both in its finances and in the number of its students, of whom there came in 1868 to be 350. In 1869 the demand of the southern counties for a Southern Illinois Normal University bore fruit in a law for its estab- lishment. After competitive bidding between rival points, the institution was located at Carbondale. In 1867 Cook county established at Blue Island the first county normal school in the state, but in 1869 it was transferred to Englewood.
In the storm and stress of Civil War, the dreams of Jona- than B. Turner and his associates for the foundation of an Illinois Industrial University found realization. After the defeat of the Morrill bill by the veto of President Buchanan, it long appeared to many advocates of agricultural education that the state would have to furnish the financial support for any undertaking that could be launched; accordingly, commit- tees of the state agricultural and horticultural societies issued
27 Peoria Mail clipped in Belleville Democrat, November 28, 1863.
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a joint call for a convention to meet in the interest of agri- cultural education at Bloomington, June 27, 1860. Turner, however, who had not given up his scheme for a federal land grant system of colleges, attended the convention and presented his views ; as a result, the resolutions adopted by the convention while urging the claims of agricultural and industrial educa- tion in all institutions of popular education, approved of the renewal of the agitation for a federal land grant.28
In July, 1862, news arrived of the enactment of the Mor- rill land grant measure, and great things were promised for the state; the legislature in the session of 1863 formally ac- cepted the state's quota of 480,000 acres. As it had become evident that there would be a struggle between the advocates of industrial education and the supporters of existing institu- tions, in which the conservative forces would be strengthened by war conditions, a convention of agriculturists at Springfield, June 9, 1863, adopted a resolution presented by Jonathan B. Turner to defer the decision in regard to the proposed indus- trial university pending the collection of additional data for consideration by the next session of the assembly.29 They also undertook to guarantee that the funds resulting from the congressional land grant should be devoted to the endowment, support, and maintenance of but one industrial college, inde- pendent of any existing institution, where a new and radical experiment in industrial education could be carried out. This program was announced in local and state agricultural con- ventions and in connection with the political contests of 1864.30
The advocates of classical education, however, wanted to use the land grant, according to Turner, "for the purpose of paying the debts or enlarging the facilities of mere classical or sectarian institutions." When Governor Yates appointed their champions on a committee to consider the proper use of
28 J. H. McChesney of the state geological survey at Springfield announced to the meeting that Chicago University had just appointed him to organize an agricultural department; a year later, indeed, the course was announced to be given in connection with an experimental farm at Cottage Hill, fifteen miles out of Chicago. Belleville Advocate, June 22, 1860; Illinois State Register, June 30, 1860; Aurora Beacon, July 5, 12, 1860; Illinois State Journal, October 15, 1861; Prairie Farmer, September 19, 1861.
29 Ibid., June 20, 1863; Illinois State Journal, January 1, May 14, 1863; Illinois State Register, May 17, June 11, 1863.
30 Prairie Farmer, January 16, February 6, September 10, October 1, 8, 1864.
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the land grant, the agriculturists raised their voices in insistent protest. The editor of the Prairie Farmer turned his ridicule upon the "farce that 'our noble governor' and his friends are engaged in introducing for the amusement and instruction of the people." With clever mimicry he ushered in the actors : "'First come, first served.' Walk up, gentlemen, in regular order, and help yourself. Come, Alton, and Galesburg, and Jacksonville, and Chicago, and Bloomington, and La Salle, come up all you halt and maimed institutions, of whatever sect or denomination; here's a great sugar-plum to be divided between you. And you, million and a half of farmers of Illinois, you who never before saw in the dim distance the glitter of a dollar intended by the government for your especial benefit ; just give us your views, and while we are deciphering the chirography of your stif- fened fingers, the plum shall all be swallowed up by those having claims upon it." Turner was too much disappointed by the evidence that his life work was about to be undone to find any humor in the situation; "I am sick of this damnable trifling with every interest of the farmer," he burst forth, "making him only the hewer of wood and drawer of water for the miserable 'cusses' who manage by chicanery and dishonesty to usurp all places of trust and responsibility which should be occupied by honest men." 31 The advocates of agricultural education thereupon agreed to support for office only candi- dates favorable to their views; under this pressure, Governor Yates not only added the names of J. B. Turner and C. R. Griggs, of Urbana, to the committee but, together with Oglesby, candidate for governor, indorsed the scheme of the agriculturists.
Various forces, however, combined to endanger the ideal that Turner had for over twenty years held before the farmers and mechanics of Illinois. The " sectarians" in general were extremely industrious; Shurtleff and Knox colleges made an ill-concealed attempt to secure a division of the federal funds by transformation into the agricultural colleges of southern and northern Illinois, while Jacksonville boosters hoped to build the new institution about Illinois College. Chicago was 31 Ibid., September 10, 1864.
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willing to join hands with some downstate point to split the university into a mechanical branch at Chicago and an agricul- tural college in a rural region.32 This scheme appealed to the local ambitions of other cities - Bloomington, Peoria, Spring- field, and the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana.
The agricultural forces of the state had appointed a number of committees which came together at Springfield in December, 1864, and, under the direction of Turner, drafted a bill for a land grant industrial university. Although the claims of rival points were presented, they were ignored by the committees ; Turner then again carried the day for an undivided institu- tion.33 When, however, this measure was presented before the legislature, it was attacked by all its opponents, and action in the assembly of 1865 was found impossible.
The next two years were years of great activity by all forces. The agriculturists, continuing their meetings at Bloom- ington, authorized the preparation of another " farmer's bill;" the college presidents of the state, summoned together at Chicago in October, 1866, agreed to petition the legislature for a division of the funds among a select number of the col- leges already in existence.34 The plan for a division of the funds, however, was easily defeated; and on January 25, 1867, an act provided for the location of the university on the basis of competitive bidding.
This action brought to a climax the demoralizing wirepull- ing, logrolling, legislative scramble at Springfield. Through the masterful manipulations of the Champaign county rep- resentative at the capital, Clark R. Griggs, the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana secured the location on a bid of $285, 000, though it was exceeded by all the other active competitors. The organization of the university in its newly chosen home was authorized on February 28, 1867. The board of trus- tees, including the governor, the state superintendent of public instruction, and the president of the State Agricultural Society, who were ex officio trustees, elected John M. Gregory of Kala-
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