Pratt, delegates from the northern tier of counties, became involved in a bitter personal controversy which resulted in a challenge by Pratt to mortal combat. The challenge was accepted and the principals with their seconds repaired to the famous "Bloody Island" in the Mississippi, when by the interposition of friends a peaceable settlement was effected. The sequel to this happily averted duel was the incorporation in the Constitution, then in process of formulation, of a provision prohibiting duelling in the State, and attaching severe penalties to sending or accepting a challenge. The earliest hostile meeting of Illinoisans was upon the island last mentioned before State organization had been effected. The principals were young men of well-known courage and ability-one of whom, Shadrack Bond, upon the admission of Illinois was elected its Governor. His adversary, John Rice Jones, was the first lawyer to locate in the Illinois country, and was the brother of the second of the unfortunate Cilley in the tragic encounter already related. The late Governor Bissell of Illinois was once challenged by Jefferson Davis. Both were at the time members of Congress, and the casus belli was language reflecting upon the conduct of some of the participants in the then recently fought battle of Buena Vista. After the acceptance of the challenge, mutual friends of Davis and Bissell effected a reconciliation, just before the hour set for the hostile meeting. So far as Illinois combatants are concerned, the historic island mentioned above has little claim to its bloody designation, inasmuch as the "affairs" mentioned, and one much more famous, yet to be noted, were all honorably adjusted without physical harm to any of the participants. The "affair of honor," the mention of which will close this chapter, owes its chief importance to the prominence attained at a later day by its principals. The challenger, James Shields, was at the time, 1842, a State officer of Illinois, and later a general in two wars and a Senator from three States. The name of his adversary has since "been given to the ages." Mr. Lincoln was, at the time he accepted Mr. Shields's challenge, a young lawyer, unmarried, residing at the State capital. He was the recognized leader of the Whig party, and an active participant in the fierce political conflicts of the day. Some criticism in which he had indulged, touching the administration of the office of which Shields was the incumbent, was the immediate cause of the challenge. That Mr. Lincoln was upon principle opposed to duelling would be readily inferred from his characteristic kindness. That "we are time's subjects," however, and that the public opinion of sixty-odd years ago is not that of to-day, will readily appear from the published statement of his friend Dr. Merryman: "I told Mr. Lincoln what was brewing, and asked him what course he proposed to himself. He said that he was wholly opposed to duelling and would do anything to avoid it that might not degrade him in the estimation of himself and friends; but if such a degradation, or a fight, were the only alternatives, he would fight.' It is stated by one of the biographers of Mr. Lincoln that he was ever after averse to any allusion to the Shields affair. From the terms of his acceptance, it is evident that he intended neither to injure his adversary seriously nor to receive injury at his hands. In his lengthy letter of instruction to his second, he closed by saying: "If nothing like this is done, the preliminaries of the fight are to be, first, weapons: cavalry broadswords of the largest size, precisely equal in all respects. Second, position: a plank ten feet long and from nine to twelve inches broad, to be firmly fixed on edge on the ground as the line between us which neither is to pass his foot over upon forfeit of his life. Next, a line drawn on the ground on either side of said plank and parallel with it, each at the distance of the whole length of the sword and three feet additional from the plank; the passing of his own line by either party during the fight shall be deemed a surrender of the contest. Third, time: on Thursday evening at five o'clock within three miles of Alton on the opposite side of the river, the particular spot to be agreed on by you. Any preliminary details coming within the above rules you are at liberty to make at your discretion, but you are in no case to swerve from these rules or to pass beyond their limits." The keen sense of the humorous, with which Mr. Lincoln was so abundantly gifted, seems not to have wholly deserted him even in the serious moments when penning an acceptance to mortal combat. The terms of meeting indicated — which he as the challenged party had the right to dictate - lend color to the opinion that he regarded the affair in the light of a mere farce. His superior height and length of arm remembered, and the position of the less favored Shields, with broadsword in hand, at the opposite side of the board, and not permitted "upon forfeit of his life" to advance an inch- the picture is indeed a ludicrous one. Out of the lengthy statements of the respective secondsthe publication of which came near involving themselves in personal altercation - it appears that all parties actually reached the appointed rendezvous on time. But it was not written in the book of fate that this duel was to take place. Something of mightier moment was awaiting one of the actors in this drama. Two level-headed men, R. W. English and John J. Hardin, the friends respectively of Shields and Lincoln, crossing the Mississippi in a canoe close in the wake of the belligerents, reached the field just before the appointed hour. These gentlemen, acting in concert with the seconds, Whiteside and Merryman, soon effected a reconciliation deemed honorable to all, and the Shields-Lincoln duel passed to the domain of history. That the reconciliation thus brought about was sincere is evidenced by the fact that one of the earliest acts of President Lincoln was the appointment of General Shields to an important military command. How strangely "the whirligig of time brings in his revenges"! A few paces apart in the old Hall at the Capitol at Washington, stand two statues, the contribution of Illinois for enduring place in the "Temple of the Immortals." One is the statue of Lincoln, the other that of Shields. XI A PRINCELY GIFT HIS DESCENT OF JAMES SMITHSON, FOUNDER OF THE SMITHSONIAN A LTHOUGH a third of a century has passed since I met Professor Joseph Henry, I distinctly recall his kindly greeting and the courteous manner in which he gave me the information I requested for the use of one of the Committees of the House. The frosts of many winters were then on his brow, and he was near the close of an honorable career, one of measureless benefit to mankind. He was the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the originator of the plan by which was carried into practical effect the splendid bequest for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." As Vice-President of the United States, a regent ex-officio of the Smithsonian Institution, I had rare opportunity to learn much of its history and something of its marvellous accomplishment. As is well known, it bears the name of James Smithson. He was an Englishman, related to the historic family of Percy, and a lineal descendant of Henry the Seventh, his maternal ancestor being the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, cousin to Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Langley, the late secretary of the institution, said: "Smithson always seems to have regarded the circumstances of his birth as doing him a peculiar injustice, and it was apparently this sense that he had been deprived of honors properly his which made him look for other sources of fame than those which birth had denied him, and constituted the motive of the most important action of his life, the creation of the Smithsonian Institution." |