The settlement of Illinois, 1778-1830

by Arthur Clinton Boggess

II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.

The act for the division of Indiana Territory provided that Illinois, during the first stage of its territorial existence, should have a government similar to that of the Northwest Territory under the Ordinance of 1787. In 1809 there were in Illinois two distinct and hostile parties, which had been formed on questions arising in Indiana Territory before division. It was with sound judgment, therefore, that the President, going outside of Illinois, appointed as Governor, Ninian Edwards of Kentucky, a native of Maryland, who successfully resisted all efforts to involve him in party quarrels.[265]

Laws for the government of the territory were to be chosen by the Governor and the judges from the laws of the states. The judges were Jesse B. Thomas and William Sprigg, natives of Maryland, and Alexander Stuart, a native of Virginia. It is worthy of note that of the twelve laws chosen before the meeting of the first territorial [pg 112] legislature, five were from Kentucky, three from Georgia, two from Virginia, one from South Carolina, and one from Pennsylvania.[266] A people practically southern in origin was being governed by officials from the south under southern laws.

Illinois entered the second grade of territorial government in 1812, electing its first legislature in October.[267] In the preceding May, Congress had passed an act making radical and most important extensions in the suffrage in Illinois, over that which had been prescribed by the Ordinance of 1787. The new provision was: “Every free white male person who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and who shall have paid a county or territorial tax, and who shall have resided one year in said Territory previous to any general election, and be at the time of any such election a resident thereof, shall be entitled to vote for members of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the said Territory.” Each county was to elect one member of the Legislative Council, to serve for four years. The territorial delegate to Congress was also made elective by the citizens.[268] One has but to consider what a complete revolution this act brought about to appreciate its great significance. Previously the Legislative Council had been appointive by the President of the United States, from nominees of the territorial House of Representatives, the nominees being twice the number [pg 113] necessary; the delegate to Congress had not been chosen by popular vote; and a freehold qualification for the elective franchise had obtained. Early petitions show how much the people complained of a landed aristocracy,[269] and letters written by Governor Edwards early in 1812 show how well founded was the complaint. No preëmption act had yet been passed, and of the more than twelve thousand inhabitants of Illinois some two hundred and twenty possessed a freehold of fifty acres, thus giving the balance of power, if the territory should enter the second grade under the old provision, to one hundred and eleven persons. Nearly one-third of the entire population lived either near the Ohio or between it and the Kaskaskia, and among them there were not more than three or four freeholders, and not one who possessed two hundred acres—the necessary qualification for a representative. With no public lands yet offered for sale, with no right of preëmption, with a freehold qualification for the suffrage, this law enfranchising squatters was of prime importance.[270]

The first legislature had few French members, and was apparently southern in nativity.[271] After more than three [pg 114] years and a half of legislation by the Governor and judges, the inhabitants at last had an elective legislature. The journals of the two houses indicate that the belief that had been expressed in petitions to Congress some years before that such a body would provide an efficient government, was well founded. The laws passed were eminently practical for the frontier conditions under which they were to operate.[272] A man contemplating settlement in Illinois could now be sure that he would be governed by Illinois men whom he had a share in electing.

The rude character of the facilities for transportation is indicated by the fact that the earlier laws of the territory deal with ferries only rarely and with bridges not at all, while as time progresses and population increases, ferries multiply and bridges begin to be constructed. By 1817-18 the desire for banks and for internal improvements, which was to be disastrous to the state at a later period, began to show itself. As examples, the Bank of Cairo and the Illinois Navigation Company will suffice. Nine men purchased the low peninsula lying near the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were incorporated by “An Act to Incorporate the City and Bank of Cairo.” A site for a city comprising at least two thousand lots, with streets eighty feet wide, was to be laid out. The lots were to be sold at one hundred and fifty dollars each and were to be not less than one hundred and twenty by sixty-six feet in size. Of the purchase money, two-thirds should go into the stock of the Bank of Cairo, and one-third to a fund to build dykes to keep the city from being flooded.[273] Considering the time and the location, the scheme was utterly impracticable. “An Act to Incorporate [pg 115] the Stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company” authorized the formation of a company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, for the purpose of cutting a canal through the peninsula between the Ohio and the Mississippi. Within twelve years a canal sufficiently large for the passage of a vessel of twenty tons burden should be completed. The company was given the right of eminent domain.[274] Here again the character of the project was unsuited to existing conditions. Population was increasing rapidly at the time these laws were passed, but they required for their success an increase much more rapid. They were, however, pleasing to the settlers and the prospective settlers of the day.

On January 16, 1818, Mr. Pope, of Illinois, was appointed chairman of a select committee to consider a petition from the Illinois legislature praying for a state government. One week later the committee reported a bill to enable Illinois to form such a government, and to admit the state into the union. When the enabling act came up for discussion, Mr. Pope offered the amendment which changed the northern boundary of Illinois from a line due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, as provided by the Ordinance of 1787, to a line running from that lake to the Mississippi on the parallel of 42° 30'. “The object of this amendment, Mr. Pope said, was to gain, for the proposed state, a coast on Lake Michigan. This would offer additional security to the perpetuity of the union, inasmuch as the state would thereby be connected with the states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, through the lakes. The facility of opening a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, said Mr. Pope, is acknowledged by every one who has visited the place. Giving to the proposed state the port of Chicago [pg 116] (embraced in the proposed limits), will draw its attention to the opening of the communication between the Illinois River and that place, and the improvement of that harbor. It was believed, he said, upon good authority, that the line of separation between Indiana and Illinois would strike Lake Michigan south of Chicago, and not pass west of it, as had been supposed by some geographers....” Although an avowed violation of the Ordinance of 1787, the amendment was adopted without division or recorded debate. Mr. Pope also secured an amendment to the effect that the state's proportion of the proceeds of the sales of public lands, instead of being applied to the making of roads and canals in the state, should be used in making roads leading to the state, and for the encouragement of learning, two-fifths being applied to the former purpose. Pope pointed out that people would build roads as they needed them, much more readily than they would supply schools, and that waste school lands in a new country would produce slight revenue. Subsequent history of the state justified both statements. The enabling act met with little opposition and was signed by President Monroe on April 18, 1818.[275]

One of the provisions of the enabling act was that, in order to become a state, Illinois must have as many as forty thousand inhabitants. In anticipation of such a provision, the territorial legislature had passed a law in January, 1818, providing that a census of the territory should be taken between April 1 and June 1. A supplemental act provided that as a great increase in population might be expected between June 1 and December, census takers should continue to take the census in their districts [pg 117] of all who should remove into them between June 1 and December 1. The law as framed gave an opportunity to count not only immigrants, but to re-count all who moved from one county to another (such moving being common), and to count in each successive county persons passing through the state. There is no reasonable doubt that at the time the census was taken, the territory had fewer than forty thousand inhabitants. Dana gives a census of 1818, in which the number is given as thirty-four thousand six hundred and sixty-six, and adds: “Another enumeration having been taken a few months after, the amount of population returned was forty thousand one hundred and fifty-six, which exceeded the number entitling the territory to become a state.”[276]

In August, 1818, the Constitution of Illinois was completed. Its provisions most likely to influence settlement were those concerning the elective franchise and slavery. It provided that “In all elections, all white male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the state six months next preceding the election, shall enjoy the right of an elector; but no person shall be entitled to vote except in the county or district in which he shall actually reside at the time of the election.” Slaves could not hereafter be brought into the state, but existing slavery was not abolished, and existing indentures—and some were for ninety-nine years—should be carried out, although future indentures should not run for a longer term than one year. Male children of slaves or indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one, and females at eighteen. Slaves from other states could be employed only at the Saline Creek salt works, and there only until 1825.[277]

During the congressional debate on the acceptance of the Illinois Constitution, objection to admitting the state was made on the ground that the number of inhabitants was doubtful, and that slavery was not distinctly prohibited, Tallmadge, of New York, who later wished to restrict slavery in Missouri, being the chief objector. The state was admitted, however, and on December 4, 1818, the representatives and senators from Illinois took their seats in Congress.[278]

Between 1809 and 1818, Illinois passed from a non-representative territorial government to a liberal state government. The energy of the settlers had done much to hasten the change, and the change, in turn, did much to hasten settlement.