Something of Men I Have Known / With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective

by Adlai E. Stevenson

"In time, after looking out upon the waters of Lake Michigan, crossing Lake Winnebago, visiting the ancient villages of the Kickapoos, 'with joy indescribable,' as Marquette declared, they for the first time beheld the Mississippi. In June, 1673, upon the east bank of the great river, they landed upon the soil of what is now the State of Illinois. At the little village they first visited they received hospitable treatment. Its inmates are known in our early history as 'the Illini'—a word signifying men. The euphonic termination added by the Frenchmen gives us the name Illinois. It is related that, upon the first appearance of Marquette and Joliet at the door of the principal wigwam of the village, they were greeted by an aged native with the words: 'The sun is beautiful, Frenchmen, when you come to visit us; you shall enter in peace into all our cabins; it is well, my brothers, you come.' In the light of the marvellous results of the visit, the words of the aged chieftain seem prophetic. We, too, may say it was well they came.

"The glory of having discovered the upper Mississippi and the valley which bears its name belongs to Marquette and Joliet. It was theirs to add the vast domain under the name 'New France' to the empire of le Grand Monarque. In very truth a princely gift. But no history of the great valley and the majestic river would be complete which failed to tell something of the priest and historian, Hennepin, and of the knightly adventures of the Chevalier La Salle.

"Much, indeed, that is romantic surrounds the entire career of La Salle. Severing his connection with a theological school in France, his fortunes were early cast in the New World. From Quebec, the ancient French capital of this continent, he projected an expedition which was to add empire to his own country and to cast a glamour about his own name. It has been said that his dream was of a western waterway to the Pacific Ocean. In 1669, with an outfit that had cost him his entire fortune, with a small party he ascended in canoes the St. Lawrence, and a few weeks later was upon the broad Ontario. Out of the mists and shadows that enveloped much of his subsequent career, it were impossible at all times to gather that which is authentic. It is enough that, with Hennepin as one of his fellow-voyagers, he reached the Ohio and in due time navigated the Illinois, meantime visiting many of the ancient villages.

"But his great achievement—and that with which abides his imperishable fame—was his perilous descent of the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico. On the sixth day of April, 1682, upon the east bank of the lower Mississippi, with due form and ceremony and amid the solemn chanting of the Te Deum and the plaudits of his comrades, La Salle took formal possession of the Louisiana country in the name of his royal master, Louis the Fourteenth of France.

"For the period of ninety-two years, beginning with the discoveries of Marquette and Joliet, the Illinois country was a part of the French possessions. Sovereignty over the vast domain of which it was a part was exercised by the French King through his commandant at Quebec. But as has been truly said, 'The French sought and claimed more than they had the ability to hold or possess. Their line of domain extended from the St. Lawrence around the Great Lakes and through the valley of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of over three thousand miles.' Truly a magnificent domain, but one destined soon to pass forever from the possession of the French monarch and his line.

"The hour had struck, and upon the North American continent the ancient struggle for supremacy between France and her traditional enemy was to find bloody arbitrament. Great Britain claimed as a part of her colonial possessions in the New World the territory bordering upon the Great Lakes and the rich lands of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. As to the merits of the French and English contention as to superior right by discovery or conquest, it were idle now to argue. Our concern is with the marvellous results of the long-continued struggle which for all time determined the question of race supremacy upon this continent.

"Passing rapidly the minor incidents of the varying fortunes of the stupendous struggle which had been transferred for the time from the Old World to the New, we reach the hour which was to mark an epoch in history. The time, the thirteenth of September, 1759; the place, the Heights of Abraham at Quebec. There and then was fought out one of the pivotal battles of the ages. It was the closing act in a great drama. The question to be determined: Whether the English-speaking race or its hereditary foe was to be master of the continent. It was in reality a struggle for empire —the magnificent domain stretching from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. The incidents of the battle need not now be told. Never were English or French soldiery led by more knightly captains. The passing years have not dispelled the romance or dimmed the glory that gathered about the name of Wolfe and Montcalm. Dying at the self-same moment—one amid the victors, the other amid the vanquished—their names live together in history.

"By the treaty of Paris which followed, France surrendered to her successful rival all claim to the domain east of the Mississippi River. In accordance with the terms of the treaty, Gage, the commander of the British forces in America, took formal possession of the recently conquered territory. Proclamation of this fact was made to the inhabitants of the Illinois country in 1764, and a garrison soon thereafter established at Kaskaskia. Here the rule of the British was for the time undisputed. British domination in the Mississippi Valley was, however, to be of short duration. Soon the events were hastening, the forces gathering, which were in turn to wrest from the crown no small part of the splendid domain won by Wolfe's brilliant victory at Quebec.

"In this hurried review I reach now an event of transcendent interest and one far-reaching in its consequences. While our Revolutionary War was in progress, and its glorious termination yet but dimly foreshadowed, General George Rogers Clark planned an expedition whose successful termination has given his name to the list of great conquerors. Bearing the commission of Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, the heroic Clark crossed the Ohio and began his perilous march. After enduring untold hardships, the undaunted leader and his little band reached Kaskaskia. The British commander and his garrison were surprised and quickly captured. The British flag was lowered, and on the fourth day of July, 1778, the Illinois country was taken possession of in the name of the Commonwealth whose Governor had authorized the expedition.

"Five years later occurred an event of mighty significance, and of far-reaching consequence—one that in very truth marks the genesis of Illinois history. I refer to the cession by Virginia of the vast area stretching to the Mississippi—of which the spot upon which we are now assembled is a part—to the general Government. To the deed of cession, by which Illinois became a part of the United States, as commissioners upon the part of Virginia, were signed the now historic names of Arthur Lee, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson.