FIRST SPECIAL SESSION.

Having adjourned without making the needed appropriations for carrying on the State Government and continuing the work on the State House, the Governor convened the General Assembly in special session on the 24th of May, and after discharging the duties for which the body met, a final adjournment was taken June 22.

SECOND SPECIAL SESSION.

On the 8th of October, 1871, a fire broke out in Chicago, which laid that city in ashes and rendered thousands of its citizens helpless and homeless, and the cry for help, immediate help, went forth broadcast throughout the land. Two days after, Governor Palmer issued his proclamation convening the Legislature in special session on the 13th of October. This was a great emergency, and the Governor met it boldly. He notified all the members through the medium of the telegraph, and within three days after the proclamation they were in their seats and ready for business.

The Constitution of 1870 had forbidden all special legislation, and there were grave doubts in the minds of many members as to the power of the Legislature to pass, constitutionally, effective laws for the relief of the city, but the Governor issued a stirring message, and clearly pointed out the way. In 1865, the Legislature had passed an act providing for the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal upon the plan adopted by the State in 1836, and entrusted the work to the city of Chicago, under certain conditions, restricting, however, the expenditure to $2,500,000, which was, ultimately, to be paid, principal and interest, by the State. In this work Chicago had expended the amount limited by the act of 1865, and at this session the General Assembly appropriated a sum sufficient

to pay the principal and interest, which amounted, in round numbers, to $3,000,000, on the payment of which the canal was surrendered to the management of the State.

ADJOURNED SESSION.

The regular adjourned session of this assembly convened November 15, 1871, to resume the labor of enacting laws to conform with the new Constitution, and continued in session until April 9, 1872, when a sine die adjournment was taken.

This body was in regular session 250 days, and in special sessions 42 days, making a total of 292, and passed laws covering a volume of 781 pages, in which was included almost every subject of legislation contemplated in the new Constitution. The duties of this body were, perhaps, more burdensome and difficult than those of any legislature which has ever assembled in the State, but they were performed with fidelity and consummate ability.

CHAPTER XXIX,
STATE CAMPAIGN-1872,

Formation of the Liberal Republican Party-Great Defection in the Republican Party-Yates' Cabinet Deserts the Republican Party-Yates Stands by the "Silent Soldier"-Lippincott True to the Republican PartyDissolution of the New Party-No Democratic Tickets-State Campaign -Aggregate Vote for State Officers, Members of Congress and Presidential Electors.

In 1870, Horace Greeley, through his paper, the New York Tribune, strenuously advocated a more lenient policy on the part of the National Administration toward the

States which had lately been in rebellion. The Republican party, then in power in Missouri, divided on the question of removing from the Constitution of that State the clause which disfranchised rebels. Carl Schurz and B. Gratz Brown led the faction favoring the abrogation of that clause, which assumed the name of Liberal Republicans. Mr. Greeley had really prepared the way for the formation of such a party, and now that Missouri had taken the initiatory step, it was not long before the new party gained followers in all the Northern States; and in 1872, a National convention assembled at Cincinnati, May 1, under its auspices, and nominated Horace Greeley for President, and B. Gratz Brown for Vice-President.

The defection in the Republican party in Illinois was very general, and it looked at the outset as though the new organization would carry both the State and National elections. The Liberal faction in Illinois was led by such eminent men as John M. Palmer, Governor; Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public Instruction; Edward Rummel, Secretary of State; ex-Lieut.-Gov. Francis A. Hoffman; ex-Lieut.-Gov. Wm. Bross; ex-Lieut.-Gov. Gustavus Korner; ex-Secretary of State, O. M. Hatch; exAuditor of Public Accounts, Jesse K. Dubois; ex-Auditor of Public Accounts, O. H. Miner; ex-Attorney-General, Washington Bushnell; ex-State Treasurer, Wm. Butler; ex-Congressman from the State-at-Large, S. W. Moulton; ex-Congressman, John Wentworth; ex-U. S. Marshal, D. L. Phillips; ex-U. S. District Attorney, Lawrence Weldon; Judge David Davis, Leonard Swett, Senator Lyman Trumbull, and last, though not least, the Chicago Tribune. Edward Rummel was nominated by the Liberals for Secretary of State, and Wm. Bross as one of the electors from the State-at-Large, and D. L. Phillips, who was then one of the chief owners of the State Journal, as a district elector.

There were many other prominent Republicans, who had been honored with places of distinction by the party, who joined in this movement, but these names will suffice to show that the schism was great and alarming even to the most stout-hearted Republican. It will be observed that all the State officers who made up the cabinet when Richard Yates was Governor, joined the fortunes of this new party, while Yates himself stood firm as a rock by the old party and the "silent soldier" whose first commission in the war he issued; and Gen. C. E. Lippincott, Auditor of Public Accounts, was the only member of the then Republican State Government who boldly declared himself willing to stand or fall by adhering to the Republican party, and he wrote a stirring letter, under date of April 24, 1872, to Wm. Murry, of Virginia, Cass county, in reply to the question as to the course that should be pursued by his old war comrades in the crisis. We give place to a brief extract from this letter:

"I answer briefly, because my time is fully occupied, but plainly, that my old comrades may clearly understand me, that I am for the Republican party and its nominees for the Presidency at Philadelphia. I see no abuses in the Republican party which it is not fully able and willing to correct. The record of that party is the proudest part of modern history. Its end cannot have approached, when nothing is arrayed against it but a threatened assault from a coalition of men of every possible political creed and character, held together by the single tie of a universal wish to get into the offices of the government. I have no criticisms to make upon the course of others, and trust that I have made my own position clear to you and to those for whom you write." (See file Daily State Register, May, 1872.)

The Republican party met in Philadelphia, June 5th, and renominated Gen. Grant for President, without opposition, and Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President. The Democratic party met in National Convention at Baltimore, on the 9th of July, and nominated Greeley and

Brown. Mr. Greeley having been an early Abolitionist and one of the chief founders of the Republican party, his nomination was not accepted as satisfactory by the entire Democratic party of the country, and a convention of what was termed the "Straight-out" Democrats met at Louisville, Kentucky, September 3, and nominated Charles O'Connor, of New York, for President, and John Q. Adams, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President. These nominations were declined.

The contest in Illinois was waged with great vigor on all sides, and many believed that the State would be carried by the Liberal party, but when the returns of the election came in it was shown that Grant and Wilson had received 241,944; Greeley and Brown, 184,938; O'Connor and Adams, 3,058. Grant's majority over all was 53,948.

In the United States, Grant and Wilson received, of the popular vote, 3,597,070; Greeley and Brown, 2,834,079; O'Connor and Adams, 29,408; Black, Temperance, 5,608. The majority of Grant and Wilson over all was 727,975. Of the electoral vote, Grant and Wilson received 286. Horace Greeley having died in the meantime, the electoral vote of the Liberal party was cast as follows: For President, T. A. Hendricks, of Indiana, 42; B. Gratz Brown, 18; C. J. Jenkins, of Georgia, 2; D. Davis, of Illinois, 1; For Vice-President, Brown received 47; G. W. Julian, of Indiana, 5; A. H. Colquitt, of Georgia, 5; J. M. Palmer, of Illinois, 3; T. E. Bramlette, of Kentucky, 3; W. S. Groesbeck, of Ohio, 1; W. B. Macher, of Kentucky, 1; N. P. Banks, of Massachusetts, 1.

Messrs. Palmer, Koerner, Trumbull and Moulton have since affiliated with the Democratic party, while Mr. Davis has been an Independent, but all the other gentlemen returned to the Republican fold before another Presidential campaign.