1825. FREE NEGROES IN ILLINOIS. 66 187 * sons were the only parties. Illinois began her career as a slave-holding Territory. She prohibited free negroes to come upon her soil; she decreed that all such as did must leave within fifteen days after notice or receive thirty-nine lashes; she accepted the Indiana +" act concerning the introduction of negroes and mulattoes," and so continued the system of registered and indentured slavery begun when a part of Indiana; she permitted non-resident slave-owners to hire their slaves to citizens of Illinois for a period of twelve months, yet not give the slave his freedom; and justified her act with the excuse that laborers were wanted to erect mills and open up the country, and that salt could not be profitably manufactured by white men. Once, indeed, an effort was made to break down slavery, and in 1817 the Legislature passed a bill to repeal so much of the act concerning the introduction of negroes and mulattoes into the Territory as authorized their importation and indenture; but the Governor defeated the attempt with his veto. That he expressed the sentiments of a very large majority of the people cannot be doubted, for when, a year later, a convention framed and adopted a State constitution, it limited the franchise to "free white men," excluded the negro from the militia, and inserted the provision that each and every person bound to service by contract or indenture in the Territory of Illinois should be held to serve out his time under the State government; but that children thereafter born of such persons should be free, the males at twenty-four and the females at eighteen. The first General Assembly under the constitution fastened slavery on Illinois more firmly than ever by re-enacting the old laws regarding free negroes, mulattoes, servants, and slaves, and by adopting what in the Southern States would have been a slave code. Thenceforth no negro, no mulatto, either by himself or with his family, was to be suffered to live in the State unless he produced a certificate of freedom bearing the seal of some court of record of the State or Territory whence he came; nor until the certificate, with a long description of himself and of each member of his Laws of Indiana, 1817, chapter iii, section 52. December, 1813. Preamble to the law of 1814. family, had been duly recorded in the county in which he proposed to live. Even then the overseers of the poor might expel him at any time they saw fit. Negroes already resident in the State were required, before June first, 1819, to enter their names with the circuit clerk, show him their evidences of freedom, and have him certify to the fact. Without such a certificate a black man was to be declared a slave and a runaway, might be arrested and committed by a justice, might be advertised for six weeks by the sheriff, and, in default of a claimant appearing, might be sold to service for one year to the highest bidder. To employ an uncertificated negro was to incur a fine of a dollar and a half for each day he labored; to harbor a slave or servant, or hinder his recapture, was felony, punishable by a fine of twice the value of the man and thirty stripes on the bare back; to sell to, or buy of, or trade with a slave or servant without consent of the master was absolutely forbidden. If a slave was found ten miles from home without a permit, he was liable to arrest and flogging. Should he appear at any house or farm without written permission from his master, the owner of the place to which he came might give him ten lashes well laid on. Should he commit any offence for which a white man would be fined, he was to be whipped at the rate of twenty lashes for every eight dollars of fine. To all intents and purposes slavery was thus as much a domestic institution of Illinois in 1820 as of Kentucky or Missouri, and with this the people might well have been content. But the excitement stirred up by the Missouri Compromise; the creation beyond the Mississippi of a slave State into which thousands of migrating slave-holders were moving; the sight of these lordly immigrants as they crowded the roads with their long trains of teams and negroes; the malicious pleasure which they took in telling the people who had lands and farms to sell how deeply they regretted that the antislavery · policy prevented them from settling in Illinois, and drove them on to Missouri, made a deep impression. Missouri seemed the promised land, into which all the rich and educated immigrants from the slave States were hurrying, to the serious loss of Illinois; and, believing that this must go on so 1822. EDWARD COLES. 189 long as Illinois was nominally closed to slavery, the people determined to sweep away every subterfuge, destroy every vestige of negro freedom, make Illinois slave soil, add one more name to the roll of slave States, and overturn the balance preserved by the admission into the Union of Maine and Missouri. The contest began in earnest in the autumn election of 1822, when a new Governor was to be chosen. Four candidates took the field. Two were pronounced advocates of slavery, and received together five thousand votes. Two were champions of free soil, and one of these, Edward Coles, was elected Governor by a small plurality. Coles was a native of Virginia, and the son of a planter and slave-owner; but during his college life he became convinced that slavery was both impolitic and wrong, and returned home fully determined if he ever inherited any portion of his father's slaves to emancipate them every one. At twenty-two he did inherit twenty-five slaves, but other matters than emancipation then occupied his thoughts. He became Private Secretary to President Madison, was sent on a special mission to Russia in 1816, and, if rumor may be trusted, was made register of a land office in Illinois by Crawford in 1819, in order to counteract the influence of Senator Ninian Edwards, who was known to be a supporter of Calhoun. As Coles went thither by flatboat down the Ohio, he gathered his slaves about him one night, made them free, and when he reached Illinois settled each head of a family on a quarter section of land. Though his election to the governorship was a triumph for the free-soil party, his opponents carried both branches of the Legislature, and soon had a chance to renew the struggle. The Governor in his first message made a bold attack on slavery, urged the speedy emancipation of such as were held in bondage because they or their parents were slaves before the Ordinance of 1787 was enacted, recommended a revision of the barbarous black laws, and asked for vigorous legislation to stop the crime of kidnapping. His remarks were referred to a committee, which presented as a report a long account of the establishment of slavery in Illinois, claimed that the condition imposed by Virginia in her deed of cession that the settlers at Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and elsewhere" should have their possessions and titles confirmed to them," could not be disregarded and their slaves set free, and ended with a resolution that the Legislature should recommend the voters at the next election for members of the General Assembly to vote for or against a convention to amend the constitution and make Illinois a slave State. The report was adopted, but to pass the resolution required a twothird vote in both branches. The Senate was almost unanimously in favor; in the House one vote was wanted, and to get it the pro-slavery men perpetrated that foul deed of which the history of legislation in our country affords many instances. At the opening of the session a contested election case had been heard and settled in favor of a member who agreed to give his vote for the re-election of United States Senator Jesse B. Thomas, who bore so conspicuous a part in the Missouri Compromise as the originator in the Senate of the thirty-sixthirty provision.* So far the member was willing to go; but when nothing could induce him to give the one vote needed to send down to the people the question of a constitutional convention, he was unseated and his place given to his contestant, a strong pro-slavery man, by the help of whose vote the resolution passed the House of Representatives. While the resolution to unseat was under debate the citizens of Vandalia, then the capital of Illinois, carried away by excitement, marched about the streets one night with a burning effigy of the sitting member, and demanded a "convention or death." When the resolution was carried and the old member unseated, the pro-slavery party went wild with delight, lit up the town, formed a procession, headed by the judges, candidates for the governorship, senators, and members of the Legislature, and marched to the home of Governor Coles, whom they grossly insulted. Still later their joy found vent in public dinners, where such toasts were drunk as "The enemies of the convention: may they ride a porcupine saddle on a hard trotting horse a long journey without money or friends"; "May those individuals who are opposed to our History of the People of the United States, vol. iv, pp. 589–591. 1824. SHALL ILLINOIS BE A SLAVE STATE? 191 cause, before the next election abandon Illinois"; "The State of Illinois: the ground is good, prairie in abundance; give us plenty of negroes, a little industry, and she will distribute her treasures.' The question whether Illinois should or should not become a slave State having thus been referred to the people, the most exciting canvass they had yet known commenced in earnest. One who lived at the time and saw it declares that men and women took part; that families and neighborhoods were divided and arrayed one against another; that personal encounters were of constant occurrence; and that at times the whole State seemed ready to settle the question by an appeal to arms.† Every known means of electioneering was resorted to and vigorously used. Newspapers were established, and their columns crowded with articles written by the ablest men. Pamphlets were printed by thousands and circulated broadcast. Men were sent over the State scattering handbills. Antislavery societies were organized with branches everywhere. Ministers of the Gospel ranged the counties, distributing tracts and pamphlets. The stump orators were ceaseless in their exertions. Denominational disputes far more bitter then than now were forgotten for the moment, and Sunday after Sunday the preachers thundered their denunciations against "spreading the great sin." After eighteen months of such canvassing, the election day came, on August second, 1824. When it ended, the pro-slavery men were beaten; the people had decided against a convention by a majority of nearly seventeen hundred votes. Never had such an election been held; more than eleven thousand voters went to the polls. #How deeply the people were moved is well shown by the fact that seven thousand more votes were given in August, 1824, on the question of calling a convention than were cast at the presidential election three months later. * A History of Illinois. Illinois from 1673 to 1873. Thomas Ford. Pp. 52, 53. A Complete History of + My Own Time. John Reynolds. P. 153. For a convention, 4,972; against it, 6,640. # On the convention question, 11,612; all presidential candidates, 4,532. For details of the vote by counties, see Illinois, Historical and Statistical. John Moses. Vol. i, p. 324. |