Madison County, Illinois - Biographical sketches (1 of 2 so headed), 1882 (part 3 of 3)

spirit. It was a minister who secured her the ordinance of 1787, by which she has been saved from slavery, ignorance, and dishonesty. Rev. Mr. Wiley, pastor of a Scotch congregation in Randolph County, petitioned the Constitutional Convention of 1818 to recognize Jesus Christ as King, and the Scriptures as the only necessary guide and book of law. The Convention did not act in the case, and the old covenanters refused to accept citizenship. They never voted until 1824, when the slavery question was submitted to the people. But little mob violence has ever been felt in the State. In 1817 the regulators disposed of a band of horse thieves that infested the territory. The ^Mormon indignities finally awoke the same spirit. Alton was also the scene of a pro-slavery mob, in which Lovejoy was added to the list of martyrs. The moral sense of the people makes the law supreme, and gives the State unruffled peace. With about $23,000,000 in church property, and 4,321 church organizations, the State has that divine police, the sleepless patrol of moral ideas, that alone is able to secure perfect safety. Conscience takes the knife from the assassin's hand and the bludgeon from the grasp of the highwayman. We sleep in safety not because we are behind bolts and bars - these only defend the innocent ; not because a lone officer sleeps on a distant corner of the street ; not because a sheriff may call his posse from a remote part of the couoty ; but because conscience guards the very portals of the air and stirs in the deepest recesses of the public mind. This spirit issues within the State 9,500,000 copies of religious papers annually, and receives still more from without. Thus the crime of the State is only one-fourth that of New York and one-half that of Pennsylvania.

Illinois never had but one duel between her own citizens. In Belleville, in 1820, Alphonso Stewart and William Bennett arranged to vindicate injured honor. The seconds agreed to make it a sham, and make them shoot blanks. Stewart was in the secret. Bennett mistrusted something, and, unobserved, slipped a bullet into his gun and killed Stewart. He then fled the State. After two years he was caught, tried, convicted, and, in spite of friends and political aid, was hung. This fixed the code of honor on a Christian basis, and terminated its use in Illinois. The early preachers were generally ignorant men, who were accounted eloquent according to the strength of their voices. Gov. Ford says, " Nevertheless these first preachers were of incalculable benefit to the country. They inculcated justice and morality- To them are we indebted for the first Christian character of the Protestant portion of the people."

In. Education, Illinois surpasses her material resources. The ordinance of 1787 consecrated one thirty-sixth of her soil to common schools, and the law of 1818, the first law that went upon her statutes, gave three per cent, of all the rest to Education. The old compact secures this interest forever, and by its yoking together morality and intelligence it precludes the legal interference with the Bible in the public schools. With such a start it is natural that we should have about 11,500 schools, and that our iliteracy should he less than New York or Pennsylvania, and about one-half of Massachu.sett.'^. What a grand showing for so young a State. These public schools soon made colleges inevitable. The first college, still flouritlilng, was started in Lebanon in 1828, br he M. E. Church, and named after Bishop McKendree. Illinoia college at Jacksonville followed in 1830, supported by the Presbyterians. In 1832 the Baptists built ShurtlefF college at Alton, and Knox college at Galesburg followed in 1838, and Jubilee college at Peoria in 1847, and the good Catholic missionaries long prior to this had e.-tablished in various parts of the State, colleges, seminaries and parochial schools. After these early years colleges have rained down. A settler could hardly eucarap on the prairie but a college would spring up by his wagon. The State now has one very well endowed and equipped university, namely the North-western University, at Evanston, with six colleges, ninety instructors, over one thousand students, and $1,.'jOO,000 endowment. Eev. J. M. Peck was the first educated Protestant minister in the State. He settled at Rock Spring, St. Clair County, about 1820, and lias left his impress on the State. He was a large contributor to the literature of that day in this State ; about 1 837 he published a Gazetteer of Illinois. Soon after John Russell, of Bluflllale, published essays and tales showing genius. Judge James Hall published the Illinois Monihly Magazine with great ability, and an annual called The Western Souvenir, which gave him an enviable fame all over the United States. From these beginnings, Illinois has gone on till she has more volumes in public libraries even than Massachusetts, and of the 44,500,000 volumes in all the public libraries of the United Spates, she ha? one-thirteenth.

The War Eecord Of Illinois

We hardly know where to begin, or how to advance, or what to say, as we can at best give only a broken synojisis of her gallant deeds. Her sons have always been foremost on fields of danger. In the war of 1812 she aided in maintaining national sovereignty. In 1831-32, at the call of Gov. Reynolds, her sous drove Blackhawk over the Mississippi.

When the Mexican war came, in May, 1846, 8,370 men offered themselves when only 3,720 could be accepted. The fields of Bueua Vista, Chapultepec and Vera Cruz, and the storming of Cerro Gordo, will perpetuate the bravery and the glory of the Illinois soldier. But it was reserved till our day for her sons to find a field and a cause and a foeman that could fitly illustrate their spirit and heroism. Illinois put into her own regiments for the United States government 2.'JG,000 men, and into the army through other states enough to swell the number to 290,000. This far exceeds all the soldiers of the federal government in all the war of the revolution. Her total years of service were G00,000. She enrolled men from eighteen to forty-five years of age when the law of Congress in 1864 - the test time - only asked for tho.se from twenty to forty-five. Her enrollment was otherwise excessive. Her people wanted to go and did not take the pains to correct the enrollment. Thus the basis of fixing the quota was too great, and then the quota itself, at least in the trying time, was far above any other State. Thus the demand on some counties, as Monroe, for example, took every able-bodied man iu the county, and then did not have enough to fill the quota. Moreover, Illinois sent 20,844 men for ninety or one hundred days, for whom no credit was asked. When Mr. Lincoln's attention was called to the inequality of the quota compared with other states, he replied, " The country needs the sacrifice. We must put the whip on the free horse." In spite of these disadvantages Illinois gave to the country 73,000 years of service above all calls. With one-thirteenth of the population of the loyal States, she sent regularly onetenth of all the soldiers, and in the peril of the closing calls, when patriots were few and weary, she then sent oneeighth of all that were called for by her loved and honored son in the White House. Her mothers and daughters went into the fields to raise the grain and keep the children together, while the fathers and older sous went to the harvest fields of the world. What a glorious record there is treasured up in the history of this great country for the patriotic Illinois soldier. Her military record during the Rebellion stands peerless among the other States. Ask any soldier with a good record of his own, who is thus able to judge, and ho will tell you that the Illinois men went in to win. It is common history that the greater victories were won in the West. When everything else was dark, Illinois was gaining victories all down the river, and dividing the confederacy, Sherman took with him on Lis great march forty-five regi ments of Illinois infantry, three companies of artillery, and one company of calvary. He could not avoid going to the sea. Lincoln answered all rumors of Sherman's defeat with " It is impossible ; there is a mighty sight of fight in 100,- 000 Western men." Illinois soldiers brought home 300 battle-flags. The first United States flag that floated over Richmond was an Illinois flag. She sent messengers and nurses to every field and hospital, to care for her sick and wounded sons. When individuals had given all, then cities and towns came forward with their credit to the extent of many millions, to aid these men and their families. Illinois gave the country the great general of the war - Ulysses S. Grant - since honored with two terms of the Presidency of the United States.

One other name from Illinois comes up in all minds, embalmed in all hearts, that must have the supreme place in this story of our glory and of our nation's honor : that name is Abiaham Lincoln, of Illinois. The analysis of Mr. Lincoln's character is difficult on account of its symmetry. In this age we look with admiration at his uncompromising honesty. And well we may, for this saved us thousands throughout the length and breadth of our country who knew him only as "Honest Old Abe," and voted for him on that account; and wisely did they choose, for no other man could have carried us through the fearful night of the war. When his plans were too vast for our comprehension and his fivith in the cause too sublime for our participation, when it was all night about us, and all dread before us.

and all sad and desolate behind us : wlien not one ray shone upon our cause ; when traitors were haughty and exultant at the south, and fierce and blasphemous at the Korth ; the loyal men here seemed almost in the minority ; the stoutest heart quailed, when generals were defeating each other for place, and contractors were leeching out the very heart's blood of the prostrate republic : when everything else had failed us, we looked at this calm, patient man standing like a rock in the storm and said, " Mr. Lincoln is honest, and we will trust him still." Holding to this single point with the energy of faith and despair we held together, and, under God, he brought us through to victory. His practical wisdom made him the wonder of all lands. With such certainty did Mr. Lincoln follow causes to their ultimate effects, that his foresight of contingencies seemed almost prophetic. He is radiant with all the great virtues, and his memory shall shed a glory upon this age that shall fill the eyes of men as they look into history. Other men have excelled him in some points, but taken at all points, all in all, he stands head and shoulders above every other man of six thousand years. An administrator, he served the nation in the perils of unparalleled civil war. A statesman, he justified his measures by their success. A philanthropist, he gave liberty to one race and salvation to another. A moralist, he bowed from the summit of human power to the foot of the Cross, and became a Christian. A mediator, he exercised mercy under the most absolute obedience to law. A leader, he was no partizan. A commander, he was untainted with blood. A ruler in desperate times, he was unsullied with crime. A man, he has left no word of passion, no thought of malice, no trick of craft, no act of jealousy, no purpose of selfish ambition. Thus perfected, without a model and without a peer, he was dropped into these troubled years to adorn and embellish all that is good and all that is great in our humanity, and to present to all coming time the divine idea of free government. It is not too much to say that away down in the future, when the Republic has fallen from its niche in the wall of time; when the great war itself shall have faded out in the distance like a mist on the horizon ; and when the Anglo-Saxon language shall be spoken only by the tongue of the stranger, then the generation looking this way shall see the great President as the supreme figure in this vortex of hist ry.

Civil Orgaxizatios

The history of Illinois has been traced while a possession of France, and when under the British government ; and the formation of Illinois as a County of Virginia has been noted. The several States afterwards agreed on the adoj)- tion of Articles of the Confederation, to cede their claims to the western land to the General government. Virginia executed her deed of cession March 1st, 1784. For several years after, there was an imperfect admistration of the law in Illinois. The French customs partly held force, and affairs were partly governed by the i)romulgations of the British commandants issued from Fort Chartres, and by tlie regulations which had subsequently been issued bv the Virginia authorities.

By the ordinance of 1787, all the territory north-west of the Ohio was constituted into one district, the laws to be administered by a governor and secretary ; a court was instituted of three judges. A general assembly was provided for, the members to be chosen by the people. General Arthur St. Clair was selected by Congress, as Governor of the north-western territory. The seat of government was at Marietta, Ohio.

In the year 1795, Governor St. Clair divided St. Clair County. All south of a line running through the Xew Design settlement fin the present County of Jlonroe) was erected into the County of Randolph. In honor of Edmund Randolph of Virginia, the new county received its name.

Shadrach Bond, afterwards the first Governor, was elected from Illinois, a member of the Territorial Legislature which convened at Cincinnati, in January, 1799. In 1800 the Territory of Indiana was formed, of which Illinois constituted a part, with the seat of government at Vincennes. About 1803, among other places in the West, Aaron Burr visited Kaskaskia in an endeavor to enlist men for his treasonable scheme against the government. In 1805, George Fisher was elected from Randolph County a member of the Territorial Legislature, and Pierre Menard was chosen member of the Legislative Council.

By act of Congress, 1809, the Territory of Illinois was constituted. !Xinian Edwards was appointed Governor of the newly organized Territory, and the seat of government established at Kaskaskia. Xathaniel Pope, a relative of Edwards, received the appointment of Secretary.

For nearly four years after the organization of the Territorial Government no legislature existed in Illinois. An election for representatives was held on the eighth, ninth, and tenth of October, 1812. Shadrach Bond, then a resident of St. Clair County, was elected the first Delegate to Congress from Illinois. Pierre Menard was chosen from Randolph County member of the Legislative Council, and George Fisher of the House of Representatives. The Legislature convened at Kaskaskia on the twenty-fifth of November, 1812.

In April, 1818, a bill providing for the admission of Illinois into the Union as a sovereign State was passed by Congress. A Convention to frame a Constitution assembled at Kaskaskia in the following July. The first election under tlie Constitution was held in September, 1818, and Shadrach Bond was elected Governor, and Pierre Menard, Lieutenant Governor Illinois was now declared by Congress admitted to the L^nion as on an equal footing in all respects with the original States. The L3gislature again met at Kaskaskia in January, 1819. This was the last session ever held at Kaskaskia. Vandalia, the same year, was selected as the Capital of the State. It was stipulated that Vandalia was to be the Capital for twenty years. At the end of that period it was changed to Springfield. Below we give list of governors and staff officers of Illinois.

From 1809

* " That from and after the first day of March next, all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies west of the "Wabash river and a direct liuedrawn i'rom the said Wabash river and Post Yincennes due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall for the purpose of temporary government, constitute a separate territory, and be called ' Illinois.' "

The territorial government was continued under the first grade from 1809 until 1812, when by a vote of the people the second grade was adopted.

Under the first grade, the Governor and Judges, who received their appointment from the President, constituted the Legislative Council, and enacted laws for the government of the people. The Governor possessed almost unlimited power in the appointment of ofiicers ; the Secretary of the Territory being the only ofiScer, not appointed by the Governor.

Lender the second grade, the people elected the Legislature, which was composed of a Legislative Council and a House of Representatives. The Legislative Council was composed of five members, and the House of Representatives of seven members.

The Legislature enacted the laws for the government of the people, but the Governor was possessed of the absolute veto power, and was therefore in position to dictate the laws, if he cho.se to exercise the power.

The term of the Governor's appointment was two years. Governor Edwards was re-appointod from time to time, as his term expired, and served through the entire territorial government.

Delegates To Ooxgress

Convened at Kaskaskia on the 25th day of November, A. D. 1812. Adjournod the 26th day of December, 1812. Second session convened and adjourned November 8, A. D. 1813.

Housf. Op Representatives

Assembled at Kaskaskia, July - , 1818. Adjonrneil .\ugnst 26, 1818. Thirtv-three delegates. One member from Washington county died during tlie .sitting of the convention ; name unknown. Constitution adopted in convention without being submitted to a vote of the people. Approved by Congress, December 3, ISIS.

Executive Depaiit.Mext

Underthe constitution of ISIS the elective officers were the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, who held office for four years. The election returns were transmitted by the returning officer.', directed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, whose duty it was to open and publish them in the presence of a m.ajority of each hou.se of the General Assembly. In case of a tie, the choice was made by a joint ballot of both houses. The first election for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor was held on the third Thursday of September, A. D. 1818. Thereafter the elections were held every four years on the first Monday of August.

The .\uditor of Public Accounts, Treasurer and ."Vtlorney- General were elected by the General Assembly, and held office for two years respectively.

By the constitution of 1S4S, all these officers were made elective by the people, except the Attorney-General, which office was abolished. The term of office for each was four years, except the Treasurer, which was two years.

The office of .^.ttorney-General was again created by law, in 1867, and the term fixed at two years. The office was first filled by appointment by the Governor, and at the e.Kpiration of the term by election by the people.

The constitution of 1870 provides that the Executive Department shall consist of a Gorernor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, Auditor of Public .Accounts, Treasurer, Superinlendeut of Public lustruclion, and Attorney-General, who sh-ill each, with the exception of the Treasurer, hold office for four years from the second Monday in January next after election. The Treasurer holds office for two years, and is ineligible for re-election until the expiration of two years next after the end of his terra. The first election under the constitution of 1870 was held November 5, A. D. 1872.

By a law pas.sed in lS49the Secretary of Siate was made ex-officio State Superintendent of Public Sohools. In 1S.54 the law establishing a svstem of free schools created the office of State Superintendent, and provided for the appointment by the Governor, upon the taking effect of the law, of some person to hold office until the elec;ion in 1855, when a State .Superintendent should be elected, and every two years thereafter.