taste had been formed south of Mason and Dixon's line.1

This sectional antagonism was strengthened by the rapid commercial advance of northern Illinois. Yankee enterprise and thrift worked wonders in a decade. Governor Ford, all of whose earlier associations were with the people of southern Illinois, writing about the middle of the century, admits that although the settlers in the southern part of the State were twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty years in advance, on the score of age, they were ten years behind in point of wealth and all the appliances of a higher civilization. The completion of the canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, however much it might contribute to the general welfare of the State, seemed likely to profit the northern rather than the southern portion. It had been opposed at the outset by Southerners, who argued soberly that it would flood the State with Yankees ; and at every stage in its progress it had encountered Southern obstruction, though the grounds for this opposition were more wisely chosen.

Political ideals and customs were also a divisive force in Illinois society. True to their earlier political training, the Southern settlers had established the county as a unit of local government. The Constitution of 1818 put the control of local concerns in the hands of three county commissioners, who, though elected by the people, were not subjected to that scrutiny which selectmen encountered in the New England town meeting. To the democratic New Englander,

1

1 Ford, History of Illinois, pp. 280-281.

2 Ibid., p. 280. See Davidson and Stuvé, History of Illinois, Chapter on 'State Policy."

every system seemed defective which gave him no opportunity to discuss neighborhood interests publicly, and to call local officers to account before an assembly of the vicinage. The new comers in northern Illinois became profoundly dissatisfied with the autocratic board of county commissioners. Since the township might act as a corporate body for school purposes, why might they not enjoy the full measure of township government? Their demands grew more and more insistent, until they won substantial concessions from the convention which framed the Constitution of 1848. But all this agitation involved a more or less direct criticism of the system which the people of southern Illinois thought good enough for Yankees, if it were good enough for themselves.1

In the early history of Illinois, negro slavery was a bone of contention between men of Northern and of Southern antecedents. When Illinois was admitted as a State, there were over seven hundred negroes held in servitude. In spite of the Ordinance of 1787, Illinois was practically a slave Territory. There were, to be sure, stalwart opponents of slavery even among those who had come from slave-holding communities; but taken in the large, public opinion in the Territory sanctioned negro slavery as it existed under a loose system of indenture. Even the Constitution of 1818, under which Illinois came into the Union as a free State, continued the old system of indenture with slight modification.3

1Shaw, Local Government in Illinois, in the Johns Hopkins University Studies, Vol. I; Newell, Township Government in Illinois.

2 Harris, Negro Servitude in Illinois, Chapter II.

Ibid., Chapter III. See Article VI of the Constitution.

It was in the famous contest over the proposed constitutional convention of 1824 that the influence of Northern opinion respecting slavery was first felt. The contest had narrowed down to a struggle between those who desired a convention in order to draft a constitution legalizing slavery and those who, from policy or principle, were opposed to slavery in Illinois. Men of Southern birth were, it is true, among the most aggressive leaders of the anti-convention forces, but the decisive votes against the convention were cast in the seven counties recently organized, in which there was a strong Northern element.1

This contest ended, the anti-slavery sentiment evaporated. The "Black Laws" continued in force. Little or no interest was manifested in the fate of indentured black servants, who were to all intents and purposes as much slaves as their southern kindred. The leaven of Abolitionism worked slowly in Illinois society. By an almost unanimous vote, the General Assembly adopted joint resolutions in 1837 which condemned Abolitionism as "more productive of evil than of moral and political good." There were then not a halfdozen anti-slavery societies in the State, and these soon learned to confine their labors to central and northern Illinois, abandoning Egypt as hopelessly inaccessible to the light.2

The issues raised by the Mexican War and the prospective acquisition of new territory, materially changed the temper of northern Illinois. Moreover, in the later forties a tide of immigration from the northeastern States, augmented by Germans who came in increas1Ibid., Chapter IV. See also Moses, History of Illinois, Vol. I, * Harris, Negro Servitude, pp. 125, 136-137

p. 324.

2

ing numbers after the European agitation of 1848, was filling the northernmost counties with men and women who held positive convictions on the question of slavery extension. These transplanted New Englanders were outspoken advocates of the Wilmot Proviso. When they were asked to vote upon that article of the Constitution of 1848 which proposed to prevent the immigration of free negroes, the fourteen northern counties voted no, only to find themselves outvoted two to one.1 A new factor had appeared in Illinois politics. Many and diverse circumstances contributed to the growth of sectionalism in Illinois. The disruptive forces, however, may be easily overestimated. The unifying forces in Illinois society were just as varied, and in the long run more potent. As in the nation at large so in Illinois, religious, educational, and social organizations did much to resist the strain of countervailing forces. But no organization proved in the end so enduring and effective as the political party. Illinois had by 1840 two well-developed party organizations, which enveloped the people of the State, as on a large scale they embraced the nation. These parties came to have an enduring, institutional character. Men were born Democrats and Whigs. Southern and Northern Whigs, Northern and Southern Democrats there were, of course; but the necessity of harmony for effective action tended to subordinate individual and group interests to the larger good of the whole. Parties continued to be organized on national lines, after the churches had been rent in twain by sectional forces. Of the two party organizations in Illinois, the Democratic party was numerically the larger, and in point 1 Journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1847, pp. 453-456.

of discipline, the more efficient. It was older; it had been the first to adopt the system of State and district nominating conventions; it had the advantage of prestige and of the possession of office. The Democratic party could "point with pride" to an unbroken series of victories in State and presidential elections. By successful gerrymanders it had secured the lion's share of congressional districts. Above all it had intelligent leadership. The retirement of Senator Breese left Stephen A. Douglas the undisputed leader of the party.

The dual party system in Illinois, as well as in the nation, was seriously threatened by the appearance of a third political organization with hostility to slavery as its cohesive force. The Liberty party polled its first vote in Illinois in the campaign of 1840, when its candidate for the presidency received 160 votes.1 Four years later its total vote in Illinois was 3,469, a notable increase.2 The distribution of these votes, however, is more noteworthy than their number, for in no county did the vote amount to more than thirty per cent. of the total poll of all parties. The heaviest Liberty vote was in the northern counties. The votes cast in the central and southern parts of the State were indicative, for the most part, of a Quaker or New England element in the population.3 As yet the older parties had no reason to fear for their prestige; but in 1848 the Liberty party gave place to the Free-Soil party, which developed unexpected strength in the presidential vote. It rallied anti-slavery elements by its cry of "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men!" and for the first time broke the serried 2 Ibid., 1845. "Smith, Liberty and Free Soil Parties, pp. 326-327.

1 Whig Almanac, 1841.