The state provides for higher education in the University of Illinois, situated in the cities of Champaign and Urbana. It was founded in 1867, through the United States land grant of 1862, as the Illinois Industrial University, and received its present name in 1885; since 1870 it has been co-educational. Associated with the University are the State Laboratory of Natural History, the State Water Survey, the State Geological Survey, the State Entomologist’s Office, and Agricultural and Engineering Experiment Stations. The University confers degrees in arts, science, engineering, agriculture, law, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, music, and library science; besides the usual subjects, it has a course in ceramics. The University publishes Bulletins of the Agricultural and Engineering Experiment Stations; Reports of the State Water Survey, of the State Natural History Survey, of the State Geological Survey, and of the State Entomologist’s Office; University Studies; and The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. The schools of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry are in Chicago. The faculty in 1907 numbered 408, and the total enrolment of students in 1907-1908 was 4743 (of whom 991 were women), distributed (with 13 duplicates in the classification) as follows: Graduate School, 203; Undergraduate Colleges, 2812; Summer Session, 367; College of Law, 186; College of Medicine, 476; College of Dentistry, 76; School of Pharmacy, 259; Academy, 377. In 1908 the University had a library of 103,000 volumes. The trustees of the institution, who have legislative power only, are the governor, the President of the Board of Agriculture, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and nine others elected by the people. There were in 1907 more than forty other universities and colleges in the state, the most important being the University of Chicago, North-western University at Evanston, Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, Knox College, Galesburg, and Illinois College at Jacksonville. There were also six normal colleges, five of them public: the Southern Illinois State Normal College at Carbondale, the Eastern Illinois State Normal School at Charleston, the Western Illinois State Normal School at Macomb, the Chicago Normal School at Chicago, the Northern Illinois State Normal School at DeKalb, and the Illinois State Normal University at Normal.
Finance.—The total receipts for the biennial period ending the 30th of September 1908 were $19,588,842.06, and the disbursements were $21,278,805.27; and on the 1st of October 1908 there was a balance in the treasury of $3,859,263.44. The bonded debt on the same date was $17,500; these bonds ceased to bear interest in 1882, but although called in by the governor they have never been presented for payment. The system of revenue is based upon the general property tax; the local assessment of all real and personal property is required, with the aim of recording all kinds of property upon the assessment rolls. Boards of Revision and Boards of Supervision then equalize the assessments in the counties and townships, while a State Board of Equalization seeks to equalize the total valuation of the various counties. The tendency is for property valuations to decline, the estimated valuation from 1873 to 1893 decreasing 27% in Cook county and 39% in the other counties, while the assessments from 1888 to 1898 were in inverse ratio to the increase of wealth. There has also been great inequality in valuations, the increase of valuation in Cook county made in compliance with the revenue law of 1898 being $200,000,000, while that for the rest of the state was only $4,000,000. Among other sources of revenue are an inheritance tax, which yields approximately $1,000,000 a year, and 7% of the annual gross earnings of the Illinois Central railway, given in return for the state aid in the construction of the road. The constitution prohibits the state from lending its credit or making appropriations in aid of any corporation, association or individual, and from constructing internal improvements, and the counties, townships, and other political units cannot incur indebtedness in excess of 5% of their assessed property valuation. The legislature may not contract a debt of more than $250,000 except to suppress treason, war or invasion, and no legislative appropriation may extend longer than the succeeding legislature. General banking laws must be submitted to the people for ratification.
History.—Illinois is the French form of Iliniwek, the name of a confederacy of Algonquian tribes. The first exploration by Europeans was that of the French. In 1659 Pierre Radisson and Medard Chouart des Groseilliers seem to have reached the upper Mississippi. It is certain that in 1673 part of the region known as the Illinois country was explored to some extent by two Frenchmen, Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit father. Marquette, under orders to begin a mission to the Indians, who were known to the French by their visits to the French settlements in the Lake Superior region, and Joliet, who acted under orders of Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, ascended the Fox river, crossed the portage between it and the Wisconsin river, and followed that stream to the Mississippi, which they descended to a point below the mouth of the Arkansas. On their return journey they ascended the Illinois river as far as Lake Peoria; they then crossed the portage to Lake Michigan, and in 1675 Marquette founded a mission at the Indian town of Kaskaskia, near the present Utica, Ill. In 1679 the explorer La Salle, desiring to find the mouth of the Mississippi and to extend the domain of France in America, ascended the St Joseph river, crossed the portage separating it from the Kankakee, which he descended to the Illinois, and built in the neighbourhood of Lake Peoria a fort which he called Fort Crevecœur. The vicissitudes of the expedition, the necessity for him to return to Canada for tools to construct a large river-boat, and opposition in Canada to his plans, prevented him from reaching the mouth of the Illinois until the 6th of February 1682. After such preliminary explorations, the French made permanent settlements, which had their origin in the missions of the Jesuits and the bartering posts of the French traders. Chief of these were Kaskaskia, established near the mouth of the Kaskaskia river, about 1720; Cahokia, a little below the mouth of the Missouri river, founded at about the same time; and Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi between Cahokia and Kaskaskia, founded in 1720 to be a link in a chain of fortifications intended to extend from the St Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. A monument of the labours of the missionaries is a manuscript dictionary (c. 1720) of the language of the Illinois, with catechism and prayers, probably the work of Father Le Boulanger.
In 1712 the Illinois river was made the N. boundary of the French province of Louisiana, which was granted to Antoine Crozat (1655-1738), and in 1721 the seventh civil and military district of that province was named Illinois, which included more than one-half of the present state, the country between the Arkansas river and the line 43° N. lat., as well as the country between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi; but in 1723 the region around the Wabash river was formed into a separate district. The trade of the Illinois country was now diverted to the settlements in the lower Mississippi river, but the French, although they were successful in gaining the confidence and friendship of the Indians, failed to develop the resources of the country. By the treaty of Paris, 1763, France ceded to Great Britain her claims to the country between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, but on account of the resistance of Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas who drew into conspiracy most of the tribes between the Ottawa river and the lower Mississippi, the English were not able to take possession of the country until 1765, when the French flag was finally lowered at Fort Chartres.
The policy of the British government was not favourable to the economic development of the newly-acquired country, since it was feared that its prosperity might react against the trade and industry of Great Britain. But in 1769 and the succeeding years of English control, this policy was relaxed, and immigration from the seaboard colonies, especially from Virginia, began. In 1771 the people of the Illinois country, through a meeting at Kaskaskia, demanded a form of self-government similar to that of Connecticut. The petition was rejected by General Thomas Gage; and Thomas Legge, earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801), Secretary of State for Plantations and President of the Board of Trade, drew up a plan of government for Illinois in which all officials were appointed by the crown. This, however, was never operative, for in 1774, by the famous Quebec Act, the Illinois country was annexed to the province of Quebec, and at the same time the jurisdiction of the French civil law was recognized. These facts explain the considerable sympathy in Illinois for the colonial cause in the War of Independence. Most of the inhabitants, however, were French, and these were Loyalists. Consequently, the British government withdrew their troops from the Illinois country. The English authorities instigated the Indians to make attacks upon the frontiers of the American colonies, and this led to one of the most important events in the history of the Illinois country, the capture of the British posts of Cahokia and Kaskaskia in 1778, and in the following year of Vincennes (Indiana), by George Rogers Clark (q.v.), who acted under orders of Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia. These conquests had much to do with the securing by the United States of the country W. of the Alleghanies and N. of the Ohio in the treaty of Paris, 1783.
The Virginia House of Delegates, in 1778, extended the civil jurisdiction of Virginia to the north-west, and appointed Captain John Todd (1750-1782), of Kentucky, governor of the entire territory north of the Ohio, organized as “The County of Illinois”; the judges of the courts at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Vincennes, who had been appointed under the British administration, were now chosen by election; but this government was confined to the old French settlements and was entirely inefficient. In 1787, Virginia and the other states having relinquished their claims to the country west of the Alleghanies, the North-West Territory was organized by Congress by the famous Ordinance of 1787. Two years later St Clair county was formed out of the S.W. part of the Illinois country, while the E. portion and the settlements around Vincennes (Indiana) were united into the county of Knox, and in 1795 the S. part of St Clair county was organized into Randolph county, with Kaskaskia as the seat of administration. In 1800 the Illinois country was included in the Territory of Indiana, and in 1809 the W. part of Indiana from Vincennes N. to Canada was organized as the Territory of Illinois; it included, besides the present territory of the state, all of Wisconsin except the N. part of the Green Bay peninsula, a considerable part of Michigan, and all of Minnesota E. of the Mississippi. In 1812, by permission of Congress, a representative assembly was chosen, a Territorial constitution was adopted, and the Territorial delegate in Congress was elected directly by the people.
In 1818 Illinois became a state of the American Union, the Enabling Act fixing the line 42° 30’ as the N. boundary, instead of that provided by the Ordinance of 1787, which passed through the S. bend of Lake Michigan. The reason given for this change was that if the Mississippi and Ohio rivers were the only outlets of Illinois trade, the interests of the state would become identified with those of the southern states; but if an outlet by Lake Michigan were provided, closer relations would be established with the northern and middle states, and so “additional security for the perpetuity of the Union” would be afforded.
Among the first problems of the new state were those relating to lands and Indians. Throughout the Territorial period there was conflict between French and English land claims. In 1804 Congress established land offices at Kaskaskia and Vincennes to examine existing claims and to eliminate conflict with future grants; in 1812 new offices were established at Shawneetown and Edwardsville for the sale of public lands; and in 1816 more than 500,000 acres were sold. In 1818, however, many citizens were in debt for their lands, and “squatters” invaded the rights of settlers. Congress therefore reduced the price of land from $2 to $1.25 per acre, and adopted the policy of pre-emption, preference being given to the claims of existing settlers. The Indians, however, resisted measures looking toward the extinguishment of their claims to the country. Their dissatisfaction with the treaties signed in 1795 and 1804 caused them to espouse the British cause in the War of 1812, and in 1812 they overpowered a body of soldiers and settlers who had abandoned Fort Dearborn (See [Chicago]). For a number of years after the end of the conflict, the Indians were comparatively peaceful; but in 1831 the delay of the Sauk and Foxes in withdrawing from the lands in northern Illinois, caused Governor John Reynolds (1788-1865) to call out the militia. The following year Black Hawk, a Sauk leader, opened an unsuccessful war in northern Illinois and Wisconsin (the Black Hawk War); and by 1833 all Indians in Illinois had been removed from the state.
The financial and industrial policy of the state was unfortunate. Money being scarce, the legislature in 1819 chartered a state bank which was authorized to do business on the credit of the state. In a few years the bank failed, and the state in 1831 borrowed money to redeem the depreciated notes issued by the bank. A second state bank was chartered in 1835; two years later it suspended payment, and in 1843 the legislature provided for its liquidation. The state also undertook to establish a system of internal improvements, granting a loan for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan canal in 1836, and in 1837 appropriating $10,000,000 for the building of railroads and other improvements. The experiment proved unsuccessful; the state’s credit declined and a heavy debt was incurred, and in 1840 the policy of aiding public improvements was abandoned. Through the efforts of Governor Thomas Ford (1800-1850) a movement to repudiate the state debt was defeated, and a plan was adopted by which the entire debt could be reduced without excessive taxation, and by 1880 practically the entire debt was extinguished.
A notable incident in the history of the state was the immigration of the Mormons from Missouri, about 1840. Their principal settlements were in Hancock county. They succeeded in securing favours from the legislature, and their city of Nauvoo had courts and a military organization that was independent of state control. Political intrigue, claims of independence from the state, as well as charges of polygamy and lawless conduct, aroused such intense opposition to the sect that in 1844 a civil war broke out in Hancock county which resulted in the murder of Joseph Smith and the removal of the Mormons from Illinois in 1846.