Statistical Series (Illinois Election Returns 1818-1848) [I]

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VOLUME — "" -•

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XVIII

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STATISTICAL SERIES,

VOLUME

I

ILLINOIS

ELECTION RETURNS 1818-1848

Edited with Introduction and Notes by

THEODORE CALVIN PEASE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Published by the Trustees of the

ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 1923

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PREFACE tempted.

VII

In any case where there

is the slightest doubt or as to whether the identification is close enough in time to be followed, a question mark has been used. The index includes the names of all persons except candidates for the presidency and vice presidency for whom votes were cast in the elections tabulated. It is primarily an index to the tables in question. Not only are senatorships and appointive offices naturally not included in it, but in many cases a man's name appears for an election in which he was not a candidate, receiving perhaps a single scattering vote. In no sense is it a complete record of the political ambitions and achievements of the individual. It includes the references to newspapers and other sources on which politIn case a man was an unical affiliations are based. successful candidate for the oflfice the name of the office for which he ran, the year, and the district only are given. In case he was elected the word ^'elected" is prefixed. One further difficulty that arose in connection with the index was that of the identity of men with similar names. To take a single instance, how many of the dozen or more John Smiths recurring in different years in different counties were to be ascribed to the same individual? The rule in cases of this sort was again one of extreme conservatism. Unless there was undoubted evidence as the identity of the persons in question distinct entries were made. The introduction, a resume of Illinois politics between 1818 and 1848, is intended to serve as a basis For the county for interpretation of the tables. boundaries as they stood at the various elections the reader is referred to the maps in Counties of Illinois,

as to the identity of the

man

—

Their Origin and Evolution Compiled and published by Louis L. Emmerson, Secretary of State, Springfield, 1920.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

The acknowledgement The

of indebtedness to others present Secretary of State, the Honorable L. L. Emmerson, and his subordinates have placed at my disposal with unwearied courtesy every facility for the examination of the original returns. The Librarian of the State Historical Library, Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber, and her assistant, Miss Georgia L. Osborne, have been of assistance at every Professor Evarts B. Greene has given valuable turn. advice on several points. own office force, Miss Williams, Mr. Earl Ruth A. C. Harrington, Miss Marvel Jones, and Miss Lilian Bechtold, have all asMiss Bechtold in especial has sisted at various stages. had the task of seeing the volume through the press. The share in this task of Professor Solon J. Buck of the University of Minnesota and Dr. Wayne E. Stevens calls for special notice. They began the volume some ten years ago, sketching the first plan for it, collecting the material and arranging the greater part of Their names do not appear on the title the tables. page simply because in working on the foundations that they left behind them in the State Historical Library, I have made very many changes in plan, arrangement, and matter; and I wish to assume the full responsibility for any errors in judgment or details that have arisen in the completion of the task that they so well began. is

a pleasant final task.

My

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Urbana, Illinois July 10, 1923

Theodore Calvin Pease

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TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations and Political Designations

xiii

Introduction

xvii

Representative in the Sixteenth Congress

1

Representative in the Seventeenth Congress Presidential

Elector

".....

— 1820

7

Representative in the Eighteenth Congress

— 1822

4

11

Governor

14

Lieutenant Governor

— 1822

19

Representative in the Nineteenth Congress

Vote on Constitutional Convention

24

— 1824

,

27

Elector— 1824 Representative in the Twentieth Congress Governor 1826 Lieutenant Governor 1826

—

48

Representative in the Twenty-first Cor^ress

54

30

Presidential

—

Presidential

36

42

Election— 1828

57

Governor— 1830

61

Lieutenant Governor

— 1830

65

Representatives in the Twenty-second Congress

70

Representatives in the Twenty-third Congress

74

— 1832

80

Representatives in the Twenty-fourth Congress

82

Presidential Election

Governor— 1834

86

— 1834 Capital — 1834

Lieutenant Governor Location of

90 94

— 1834

Twenty-third Congress

^8

Representatives in the Twenty-fifth Congress

101

Representatives

Presidential

in the

104

Election— 1836

Representatives in the Twenty-sixth Congress

Governor— 1838

107 Ill

— 1838 Election — 1840

Lieutenant Governor

114

Presidential

117

Representatives in the Twenty-seventh Congress ix

120

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

X

Governor

— 1842

Lieutenant Governor

r^-7-.:

126

— 1842

129

—

Vote on Calling a Constitutional Convention 1842 Representatives in the Twenty-eighth Congress

135

Representatives in the Twenty-ninth Congress

142

Presidential Election

149

—

1

132

844

Representatives in the Thirtieth Congress

Governor

— 1846

Lieutenant Governor

153

160

— 1846

164

— 1846 — 1847

Vote on Calling a Constitutional Convention Representative in the Twenty-ninth Congress

168 171

— 1847

Representative in the Thirtieth Congress Constitution of

1848

Constitution of

1848

— Separate

172 173

Clauses

Senators in the First General Assembly

]

176 185

Representatives in the First General Assembly

185

Senators in the Second General Assembly

186

Representatives in the Second General Assembly

189

Senators in the Third General Assembly

196

Representatives in the Third General Assembly

200

Senators in the Fourth General Assembly

207

Representatives in the Fourth General Assembly Special Elections for

Senator— 1824-1825

— 1825

Special Elections for Representative

210 217 217

Senators in the Fifth General Assembly

219

Representatives in the Fifth General Assembly

222

Senators in the Sixth General Assembly

230

Representatives in the Sixth General Assembly

— 1828

Special Election for Representative

Senators in the Seventh General Assembly Special Election for Senator

— 1830

233 241

242

244

Representatives in the Seventh General Assembly

245

Senators in the Eighth General Assembly

253

Representatives in the Eighth General Assembly

256

Senators in the Ninth General Assembly

265

Representatives in the Ninth General Assembly

268

Spedal Election for Representative

278

— 1834

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IntroducStion The Politics of 1818 The

thirty years of Illinois election returns

under

the Constitution of 1818 are for a period in- national political history of

supreme

Applied

interest.

to those

colorful years, such phrases as "a period of transition,"

democracy," are but drab necessities of A more vivid rendering of the period for diction. Illinois may be had by saying that it begins with the ruffled gentility of Ninian Kdwards and ends with the shirt sleeved democracy of Stephen A. Douglas. For Douglas does not seem so very remote from Roosevelt nor Washington from Edwards; but though the political careers of Edwards and Douglas almost touch midway between 1818 and 1848, they seem of different ''the

rise

of

worlds.

The

political revolution of the generation

described in terms of the rise of democracy.

and flow

in

American

1818, in that

year

it

is

best

At ebb

politics for a full century before

was sweeping up

to flood.

From

the beginning of the eighteenth century to the Revolu-

had grown narrower and more undemocratic throughout the colonics. The Rcvtion suffrage qualifications

marked a sharp reaction in mocracy that, checked temporarily lution

tlic

direction of de-

in the

period of fed-

eralist rule, had begun to run with increasing force in

the years that followed 1800.

When

Illinois entered the

union, the anti-democratic reaction in favor of strong

government from above

that had set in at the close ot

the Revolution had fully spent

itself.

State after state

no iB-' UiHl

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIOXS

xViii

was throwing off the property qualhad survived the Revolu-

of the old thirteen

ifications for the suffrage that

Xew

tion.

model

oi

York,

suff'rage in 1821

western

in

states

;

in

ice

and the

to

respects the constitutional

enlarge the bounds of her

1S24 she

had come

suff'rage or at least

to

many

vras

Illinois,

with

made

into the suff'rage

The union with manhood it

universal.

based on militia serv-

Illinois Cunstitution of 1818

gave the vote

every white adult male.

Hand

hand with the extension of the democratic came the need of devisino^ a new

in

base of government

system of political party organization.

In the years

that followed the Revolution the choice of party can-

didates and the adoption of party platforms by elected

conventions had died out.

First in national and then

in state politics the legislative it;

but by

ISIS the

caucus had supplanted

legislative

caucus

and natiun was becoming discredited. the admission of Illinois the rival

cumn^ittee nomination was tbiC

party convention

the partv standard bearers,

forms, and enforcing the larity.

ciple

which

The

full

to

to take

pass its

in

both state

Shortly after

method of self or away likewise and

place in designating

announcing the party

new

plat-

principle of party regu-

establishment of the democratic prin-

and the development of political methods by it

might operate was the problem

of the gen-

eration of 1818 to 1848.

Thr

Pfriod of Personal Factions

For the hr-t decade after Illinois entered the union the [^olincil world wa^ without form and void. The ticca\mg Icdcralist party never existed in Illinois, and all her aspir.uns for office professed themselves

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xix

So far as they grouped themselves for combats on partisan lines, they rallied around favorite measures in state and national legisrepublicans.

their political

latures, favorite candidates for the presidency

important of

around the banners of

all

and most

state political

factions.

The

classical interpretation of Illinois party his-

tory for the

first

ten years of statehood

Edwards and anti-Edwards

in

terms of the

factions, the

groups that

is

had supported and opposed Ninian Edwards as territorial governor. Their politics were essentially personal; differences between them on questions of principle are undiscoverable. Measures in their politics acquired importance only as they might favor the a friend or hinder those of an Usually active only when senatorships and other desirable offices were to be voted for, the rival groups in many, perhaps most cases did not carry their

political fortunes of

enemy.

feuds into elections for the legislature, letting the local influence of the candidates, and local manoeuvers de-

termine the

Ninian Edwards, running

issue.

ernor in 1826 was sharply called

for gov-

to task for criticising

throughout the state the course taken on the by members of the legislature; one gathers

state

bank

his course

was unusual.^

Ranged under

we

the

Edwards banner in Pope Cook,

find the banneret of Daniel

these years

the son-in-

law of Edwards, always his loyal supporter, and by his sunny personality the most popular man in ihe state. Beside it were the flags of Nathaniel l\)pc, tlic uncle of Cook, of Benjamin Stephenson; those of Samuel P. 1

6,

Edwards, History

1826.

—3

of Illinois, pp. 203-206;

Illinois

Intflligrmtr

.

July

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

XX

Lockwood and Thomas

C.

Browne soon

to

ascend the

state supreme bench and grow cold in politics; those of George Forquer and Thomas Ford, half-brothers condemned by their poverty to serve long political apprenticeships to wealthier if less able men; and those of several leaders as quick to change sides as Italian condottieri of the fifteenth century such as Theophilus W. Smith and William Kinney. Opposing the Edwards group but at first owning no common leader were the violent and headstrong John McLean, Elias Kent Kane, a Yale graduate, astute and reserved, Jesse B. Thomas, with the savor of territorial political trades Independent of both groups at still clinging to him. first but soon to join the anti-Edwards alliance was Shadrach Bond, a colorless figure of gentility. Each of these names represents a following, or rather a personal influence that usually was exerted for candidates of the one faction and against those of the other. The loosely grouped factions had their ramifications outside the state, especially in Missouri and Kentucky; in Missouri, for instance. Cook and Edwards were allied with the political foes of Thomas Hart Benton.' Candidates Political methods were rudimentary. for the greater of^fices were fixed on probably in private conference, and put forward by announcements in the newspapers signed by the candidates themselves, or by communications signed by friends calling on them to ofler as a public duty. Small men and great when can-

didates for office rode the state or district, stump-spcakiRuck, Illinois in iSlS, p. 201; Pease. The Frontier Siatr, pp. i

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^SPECIAL ^

INTRODUCTION

ing and canvassing, the greater

men

xxt-f

distributing gra-

whisky and gingerbread." Newspapers played their part, small weekly papers in which there was little space for news or for politics save of the personal order. These presses were usually operated by

ciousness, the smaller,

.

•

:

{

—

men in the interests of the factions, for instance the svil Edward I e Spectator was an Edwards newspaper edited by Hooper Warren, in return for small money

—

.

doles and appointive county offices.

Politics on the

larger scale, as far as offices of honor were concerned,

was

'

4

essentially a

The

(

for gentlemen of fortune and

first state

election except for the seat in con-

which McLean won over Cook by a narrow marwas apparently an affair prearranged by compr'>-

t

gress

]

gin,

i

game

leisure.

mise among the rival factions, Bond succeeding to the governorship and Edwards and Thomas becoming senators. Pierre Menard, an independent, became lieutenant governor.

No

1818 are extant.

The

official returns of the elections of

truce between the factions

short duration, and the rivalry of

and of their respective

allies

was of

Edwards and Thomas

was soon

raised to fever

heat.

The

effect of the introduction of the question of

slavery in Illinois politics

is

one that has been

misunderstood. The of 1822 was primarily slavery.

much

issue in the gubernatorial election

little

Edward

Coles,

stiff

Virginia aristocrat, the friend of Jefferson ami

Madison, who lived by principle and on principle opposed slavery, in politics an anti-luiwards independent with a small following stood on the anti-slavery side ^Illinois .

250-52.

IntcUigemcr, July

1,

1818;

Waslilnmic, i:Ji..arJs Paprrs, pp.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xxli

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with Joseph Phillips, also an anti-Edwards leader, Nathaniel Pope attempted to rally as his opponent. the Edwards faction in support of some candidate, perhaps Thomas C. Browne, a late entry, but Edwards refused to follow Pope's lead. Coles winning by a few hundred votes/ In the contest that followed' in the general assembly in the passage of the

Convention

Resolution and in the state in the campaign as to whether or not a convention should be held, the lines

were not drawn according to testants for the famous seat

faction.

Of

the

two con-

house for

in the Illinois

the county of Pike, that determined the passage of the

Convention Resolution, John Shaw, the

man

admitted

to vote for the convention was an Edwards man, and Nicholas Hansen, his ousted opponent, anti-Edwards." A majority of the Edwards faction took the antiThe position of Edwards was in convention side. doubt at the time, and in spite of the asseveration of

Hooper Warren,

the anti-slavery editor of

the

EJ-

wardsville Spectator, and withal the bitter personal foe of

Governor Coles the position

of

Edwards

State historians have speculated

doubt.'*

why

is

still

in

the state

should have relegated to political obscurity the sup-

honored with her highest The answer is that once the contest was over both sides regarded the question as closed; and in the future political contests the porters

of

freedom, and

offices the supporters of slavery.

iWashburne, Edivards Papers,

p.

199,

and see note

in

Pease, Frontirr

State, p. 76. 2

Pease,

The Frontier

State, pp. 79-80.

Edivardsville Spectator, April 12, 182?, appe.ilinp to Edwards to take an open stand against the convention. So far as I know Edwards never did so. He was twitted with the fact that when James 11.ill asked his position on the convention question he referred Hall to his speeches sSee

letter

in

on the Missouri compromise.

Illinois hiirllifjencer,

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

xxiii

personal followings of the anti-slavery leaders were not as strong as those of Kane, Kinney, and others.^

In state elections, meanwhile, Cook had successfully beaten for congress the strongest leaders of the

anti-Edwards group:

Bond

McLean

in 1820,

Kane

in 1822,

In 1826 he was running for congress without a personal campaign, supposedly under the

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in 1824.

handicap of having disregarded the wishes of his constituents and cast the vote of Illinois in the House for Adams and not Jackson; and his nemesis waited in the engaging figure of the young Kentucky officer of the War of 1812, Joseph Duncan. That Cook was defeated because he disregarded the will of the state by not voting for Jackson is doubtful; that the vote of Illinois in 1824 was decisive fcr Jackson is equally doubtful. Electors were chosen in three districts, candidates being run in each of the interests of the various presidential aspirants; one candidate for elector, James Turncy, ran under tlic designation '^Jackson or Clay" but was currently supposed Turney's vote credited to be the Crawford candidate. to Jackson or Clay would have given cither man the plurality in the state; credited to

give the plurality to fact that

Cook was

Adams.

Crawford

it

would

Further, in spite of the

Adams, he

criticised for voting for

did as well in the strong Jackson counties 1824. The tradition that Cook's vote

in

1826 as in

for

Adams

caused his defeat probably dates from 1830 when the supporters of William Kinney for the governorship

were endeavoring to prove that his opponent, John Reynolds, had been anti-Jackson in 1820 as Reynolds ;

iPease,

The Frontier

State, pp. 89-90.

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ILLIXOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIOXS

xxiv

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had supported Cook in that election, they alleged Cook had been defeated on the Jackson issue.

More probably

the defeat of

Cook

that

chargeable

is

to

popuhir disgust with factional politics. Xinian Edwards, who had resigned from the senate in 1824 under a cloud for unwarranted attacks on the integrity of Crawford as secretary of the treasury, was running a rising

for governor in 1826 to secure a popular vindication.

moment

during the campaign George Forquer, an Edwards supporter, published a letter

In

a

of irritation

Edwards

signed ^'Tyro" condemning

for

making

his

race on factional grounds, for relying on the old factional

merely tion

animosities,

and for seeking an

as a salve to his

that father-in-law

wounded

office of

vanity."

The

trust

reflec-

and son-in-law were running

for the two highest offices in the gift of the people of

Tyro's

the state doubtless accentuated

point.

That

Thomas Sloo, the opponent of Edwards, and Joseph Duncan were not well known in factional politics was Edwards

arduous campaign was barely successful over an opponent he had attccted to despise. Cook, making no campaign at all, was defeated. His personal popuhirity might have enabled all in their favor.

him

to

recover his

of consumption.

by the

after an

lost prestige;

but

a

In his death, Edwards' faction, shaken

election, suffered a

still

heavier blow.

In the course of his gcn'crnorship,

wore down

year later he died

his popuhiritv in

Edwards

further

an undignitied squabble

with the legislature over the guilt oi the off'iccrs oi the state bank, and in the pursuit of his peculiar hobby that 1

Pease,

T/ie

Frontier State, pp.

^-Illinois hitflligrncer, July 6,

106-108,

1826.

111-115.

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION the state, on

of state sovereignty,

was

entitled

its borders. By the end Edwards' control in Illinois politics was had failed ignominiously in running For-

public land within

to all the

of his term,

broken.

ground

XXV-:

He

quer against Duncan for congress in 1828. feudatories like

The great Lockwood, Browne, and Pope,who had

formerly followed his standard, had deserted it and stood neutral, and his personal influence, w^hile it sufficed to help elect his old opponent, John Reynolds, governor in 1830, was but a shadow of w^hat it had been.

Above

all,

in national politics he

could not decide be-

tween the followers of Adams and Clay and the followers of Jackson. Himself a partisan of Calhoun, the influence of Duff Green, his brother-in-law, Calhoun supporter and editor of the official Jackson organ, dre^^' him toward the Jackson administration. Both sides made overtures to him, but he waited to hold the balance of power, and waited too long."^ As for state politics, on the eve of Jackson's election there is a classic passage in a letter of James Hall

Thomas

Sloo which sets them off to perfection: "Smith, Kinney, and West, are about to set up a Newspaper at Edwardsville ostensibly for Jackson, but in fact to operate in State politics. Smith and Kinney want to be Senator and Governor. They go against Edwards, Thomas, but most especially and bittcrlv against McLean. Pnrty No. 2 consists of John llcviiolds and Tom Reynolds the Bcairs, etc., Jno Reynolds wants to be Senator is inveterate against Smith, EdVariy wards, Thomas and don't much like McLean. privates Solus ~^x\\q No. 3 consists of Jesse B. Thomas and officers yet to be enlisted. The Honorable Jesse is very bitter against Smith and Co., but more against to

—

—

1

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pp. 256, 25'^.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xxvi

McLean. and

He

swears that

a dishonest politician

McLean

— that he

a dishonest

is

man

i

G

and by

cant,

he shn?it be elected! ^'1 do not see how the above named men can ever again amalgamate, at any rate they will not join with Party No. 4 which consists of Jno McLean and his

friends

—Nor with Party No. 5 which

Edwards

&

is

composed

of

Co.

''Depend upon it, my dear sir, these combinations are going on in our State will ruin every man who is engaged in them. The people are beginning to complain loudly. Kinney is sinking faster than I ever saw any man, his violence disgusts even his friends. Thomas and Edwards are gone. Smith is universally feared, his ambition and his intriguing spirit alarm Lockwood and Wilson are greatly friends and foes. depreciated. All of these men must go down. NIcLean ."^ stands best, but his prospects are very doubtful. In calculating the future Hall was at fault. Kane, Kinney, Duncan, Smith, West, and Bond, most of them former supporters of Crawford, drew closer together

which

.

.

group that soon became the dominant force in politics. Thomas left the state, McLean died, and

into a state

their only opponents, the powerless

shifty

John Reynolds, and

Edward

Coles, the

the disintegrating

Edwards

faction except in the gubernatorial election of

were consistently unsuccessful against them. all, the new allies had become Jacksonians, and of Jackson was in the ascendant. Tirr^

Rise of

Andrew Jackson

1830,

Above the star

Andrkw Jackson

stands as the incarnation of the

democratic movement tliat had been gathering force since 1800, and was to bring the people a far more vital ^Illinois State Historical Society,

T r an s actions

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

xxvii

_

control of their government than they had enjoyed be-

The

fore.

masterful,

and

figure of the victor of

democratic,

beside

New

the

Orleans, stern,

caucus

politicians

Washington towered to heroic Here was a man whose achievements

closest statesmen of

proportions.

were not orations but

victories, not treaties but con-

The West, with

quests.

all

her unbridled strength and

her military pride, through the nients of the

War

many

bitter disillusion-

of 1812 could see as the realization

of her visions the dazzling victories of Jackson.

She was dreaming dreams of greater national power, prestige and uprightness, and she placed in the presidential chair the man who seemed to have the power to make dreams come true. Her masterful hero, untaught in politics, was to raise to new heights the power an^ prestige of the office because he sensed the fact that the

President of the United States need not like

Monroe

and Adams be merely an executive automaton; he might if he would stand forth as the incarnation of the people's will.

The Jackson movement on an ideal plane. tially

aristocratic

ment were perhaps

Politicians like

son

men

drifting off

ford men, and worse

Van

be converted by

to

to

was not always Rurcn, essen-

their earlier notions of govern-

in

to take advantage of

ment was destined

of course

it.

The

it,

were certainlv

personnel of the move-

change continually, original Jackto the opposition, and old Crawstill,

old federalists taking their

Jacksonian doctrines, too, were to evolve and expand, sometimes to reverse themselves completely. As the content of Jacksonian democracy changed and places.

its

measures developed, the idea of party regularity was

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

XXX

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formative period on the public land and Indian questions were similar; both looked in the late twenties to

Old South for support. Illinois was cheerfully abandon her dream of protection, less cheerfully that the

*

to

of

national internal improvements for an alliance with the South that promised a white man's Indian policy

and

toward the purchaser and user of the public lands. The amalgamation of these measures with enthusiasm for Jackson was to make the democratic party in Illinois. a liberalized attitude

The Years

of Chaos 1830-34

..

The decade between 1830 and 1840 was to see the Jacksonian enthusiasm of the previous decade crystallized into a political party and inscribed in a political creed, and in great measure both creed and organization

came because

the ideas of Jackson as to specific pol-

were to suffer a sea change. In part this was perhaps due to the fact that the Crawford group in Illinois and elsewhere, turning to the Jacksonian party carried icies

with

it

Crawford's supposed adherence

to the ideals of

and republican simplicity. The Jackson of 1824 had been a Jackson disposed to favor internal improvements and a *'judicious" protective tariff. If the tariffs of Jackson's day 1798, strict construction, states rights,

can be termed judicious, the Maysville Turnpike veto

any attempt at an interpretation in favor of internal improvements. The hostility of Jackson to the bank might have been predicted, but not the length to defies

which he carried it; the revolter against caucus rule of 1823 might well have foreshadowed the man who, by his vetoes and by the expunging resolution, bent both houses of congress

to liis will;

but the Jackson of

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

^^

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the period of proscriptions and removals

from

office

was hardly the Jackson of 1817 or 1823 calling for abatement of party bitterness and for reform. 'd In 1830 Illinois politics were a welter of confusion. The old Crawford element in Illinois, led by Kane and Kinney, had gained the recognition of the administragenuine Jackson

tion as the

Edwards group

the

men

because they accused

Adams men

of coalescing with

carry elections as indeed

was the

case.

Ingham,

to

the

secretary of the treasury, like Edwards, a former Cal-

houn adherent, warned the Edwards group that Jackwould not permit or pardon coalitions for any purpose with Adams' men.^ Edwards in vain drafted long

son

Jackson exposing the iniquities and former opposition of those who now enjoyed his favor. Edwards could not understand why he could not continue to be the friend of Jackson without renouncing his regard for Clay; could not understand why he could not seek support where he could find it in the Illinois letters to

Washington would never estimate at their real importance. Such were the Jackson men to whom was given the contemptuous name of "milk and cider" democrats to distinguish them from the "whole hog" variety such as Kinney. There were other Jackson men like Joseph Duncan factional

who

wars that

failed to see

political

why adherence

to

Jackson should

There

entail the obligation to support all his measures.

were many such

in congress in the early thirties,

dexter of Mississippi, Bibb

of Kentucky,

Poin-

Rugglcs of

Ohio." y\s a result the Jackson leaders in a congress Aug. 1, 1829. luldy Mss. the lulwanls Mss. in the Chicago Historical

^

IiiRhain to KIniniel,

^

Sec such

a

draft in

'Klutohiograpliy of Martin

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xxxii

men who on

day claimed to be Jacksonian maintain a working majority. Before the Jacksonians could crystallize into a real party they had to push partisanship down into state and local

of

had hard work

elections,

election

to

and enforce on men

of party regularity. off in this process

The

were

to

like

Duncan

the doctrine

elements necessarily thrown

form the whig

party.

The narrative of Illinois politics from. 1830 to may serve as the commentary on the generalization just made. The followers of Adams and Clay had been able to make but a pitiful showing in the presi1834

dential elections. in the field

and

In 1832 an anti-Masonic ticket was

Jackson group

a part of the

in the state

Van Buren for the vice presidency to the point of putting forth a ticket of electors for Jackson for president and R. M. Johnson for vice president. Some of the men concerned in the movement as A. P. Field were to end as whigs; some like John Reynolds, after hesitating long between the two parties, were to throw in their lot with the democratic, others like Dement and Hacker were forthwith to become the most downright of democrats.^ But if the Adams and Clay elements were powercarried their opposition to

—

less in a contest

based on their

own

resources against the

redoubtable name of Jackson, they could cause victory to incline to Jacksonians of the ''milk and cider" persuasion.

The

race for the governorship in Illinois in

Edwards gave his supshuffling, empty John Reyn-

1830 was a political farce. port to the portentous, olds 1

who Pease,

believed in being The Frontier

State, p.

all

140.

things to

all

men, awA

id

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION thereby obtained the

xxxiii.

Adams

the fiery, headstrong

vote. Opposed to him was William Kinney, a merchant by

vocation and preacher by avocation, sharpwitted but illiterate, with the support of the anti-Edwards group.

Reynolds with

his nondescript

support was successful.

A eral

War

movement largely anti-Jackson in favor of GenJames D. Henry, Illinois hero of the Blackhawk for governor, in 1834

death. In that year,

was frustrated by Henry's

Duncan, on the verge

of joining the

anti-administration party, and certainly a malcontent

Jacksonian, ran for governor against R. K.

McLaugh-

lin, Kinney, and James Adams, Kinney and McLaughlin being run by the Van Buren faction of the party; Adams, whose vote was small, may have represented a

Clay following. Duncan's friends intimated that he was still Jacksonian in spite of the fact that the old Adams strength was quietly thrown for him.^ Once elected, Duncan threw off all reserve. His messages as governor are filled with long attacks on his former associates. Of his whiggcry after 1(S34 there was no doubt.

section of the old

thi

The

;i

congressional election of 1834

is

even more

striking. In the John Reynolds and Adam W. Snyder ran against each other as Jackson men, Snyder being for a United States bank and Reynolds characteristically enough for ''an arrangement with which all parties will be satisfied." Reynolds quietly first district

and obtained support in the ranks of the antiadministration party, and did not become an out M\d out Jacksonian until after he was elected. In the second district Zadok Casey and William H. Davidson, later solicited

1

Pease, T/te Frontier State,

p.

144-146.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xxxvl

^

had come, or they might be packed by improper apportionment. Delegates might be chosen unfairly and conventions might be subject to admit rigging by political manipulators. It was impossible to deny that these things could and did occur. The older Jacksonian democracy of southern Illinois was inclined all

the delegates

to

regard the convention

least as a

New

York

Deeper than was

a

this

man's right

if

not as a Yankee trick, at

one.

was the

to offer

feeling, probably, that

it

himself or his friends' right

propose him to the suffrages of his fellow citizens whenever he or they saw fit and that to deny him this right because he failed to gain a convention's approval was not just. Probably it was irksome to men of great to

personal influence in their districts accustomed in legislature or congress to acting

more or

less

independ-

ently to be dictated to by their party leaders under pain of being read out of the party by the party press and

defeated for renomination by a hand picked party convention.

Of

two parties developing in the state the democratic party was to organize completely on the convention system by the early forties. The use of conventions was believed by the party leaders to have been the factor that kept the state in the democratic column. Twice it enabled the party to change its candiiiatc When for governor in the midst of a campaign. James W. Steplienson was proved a defaulter in 1838 the party was able to turn to Thomas Carlin and When Adam W. Snvdcr died at elect him governor. the beginning of the canvass for governor in 1S4J though

the

it

was not

a

full

convention ihat put

Thomas

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SPECIAL IN TROD UCTION

xxxvii

Ford in his place it was the spirit of acquiescence produced by conventions that insured Ford's election. The lack of a democratic district convention w^as admitted reason for John T. Stuart's success in the north-

as the

ern congressional district in 1841/

It w^as true that'

occasionally an independent democrat w^as elected over

convention nominee

a

trict in

1846,"^

proved the venient

congressional dis-

too, the system was a conrank and file of the party to echo their platforms the shibboleths of the party

rule.

way

loyally in

as in the first

but that was merely the exception that

In practice,

to get the

leaders.

The attitude of the whigs toward the convention harder to define. They used it occasionally, sometimes replacing it in local elections by mass meetines. Sometimes they used it in the counties; how much one cannot say. The whig party was much more loosely organized than the democratic and the central newspapers of the party knew less and printed less of the is

doing of their party than did the democrats.' Therefore the reason why fewer whig county and district convention proceedings appear than democratic ones may be that the Sangamo Journal was less interested than the State Register in that sort of news; but probably also there were fewer conventions held, and The whigs those more casual in their organization. local

held conventions for nomination of presidential electors; but for state offices they seemed to shrink from the convention system; and '^Chicago Democrat, Sept. ..

11,

The Frontier State, »The Sangamo Journal for

2

Pease,

Register the list of sucrcssful with tlieir party afhliations.

p.

when

they adopted

it,

tlicy

1841. 197.

iiisiaiice,

luiuliilatcs

May for

6,

(he

from the 1847, copied constitutional coii\rntion

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xxxvlii

did

-^r

They avoided a convention 1842 by inducing the withthe candidates for governor but Dun-

but half-heartedly.

it

for the state election in

drawal of

all

was seriously proposed that the whig central committee select a candidate for governor on the basis of letters from leading whigs from 'various counties; and the actual nominating convention held seems little more than a committee affair.' Probably the methods of pressure, public and private, used to induce extra candidates to withdraw were more can;

1846

in

it

disastrous to party unity than a hard fought convention contest

would have been;

The

at least

question remains as to

Lincoln thought

how

so.

far the returns

here presented confirm the notion of the efficiency of the convention system.

study of the returns from

1846 leaves the general impression that

1838

to

little

the

to

A

whig party was melting away.

On

overloose organization?

a first

Was

glance

at

general assembly returns after 1838 in a mass the sults

The

by due

little

this

the re-

achieved by the two parties do not seem dissimilar. whigs in almost as many cases as the democrats

ran no filled.

more candidates than there were seats to be However, the returns do not show the influence

of discontent and listlessness within the party and fail-

ure of

its

strength to turn out.

In these respects the

whigs far more than the democrats were always com^w a famous partv circuhir plaining of their party, Abraham Lincoln, S. T. Logan, and A. T. Bledsoe argued that the failure, to hold state conventions had been disastrous in the elections of 1842 both for the governorship and assembly. ^

Alton Telegraph,

May

2,

June

20,

1846.

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xxxix

''Our candidate for Governor, with the approbation of a large portion of the party, took the field without a nomination, and in open opposition to the system. Wherever in the counties the Whigs had held Con-

—

ventions and nominated candidates for the Legislature; the aspirants, who were not nominated, were induced to rebel against the nominations, and to become candidates, as is said, 'on their own hook.' And go where you would into a large Whig county, you were sure to find the Whigs, not contending shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy, but, divided into factions, and fighting furiously with one another. The election came, and what was the result? The Governor beaten, the Whig vote being decreased many thousands since 1840, although the democratic vote had not increased Beaten almost everywhere for members of the any. Legislature. Tazewell, with her four hundred Whig: majority, sending a delegation half democratic. VerColes, milion, with her five hundred, doing the same. with her four hundred, sending two out of three; and Morgan, with her two hundred and fifty, sending three out of four; and this, to say nothing of the numerous other less glaring examples the whole winding up with the aggregate number of twenty-seven democratic rep-

'

—

;

resentatives sent

from

The democrats

Whig

counties.'"

insisted that the place of the

con-

vention with the whigs was taken by the secret caucus. The State Register, July 21, 1837, five months before

names were announced by the newspapers, declared that such a caucus had nominated Cyrus Edwards and W. H. Davidson, whig candidates for govIt asserted that the ernor and lieutenant governor. was the guiding iorce in Springfield "Whig Junto" at the party. Undoubtedly in a party so loosclv organized their

as the 1

whig

party most of the guidance and suggestion

Alton Telegraph, March

25,

1843.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xl

had

to

come from small

knots,

who

' '

-;-^

dictated the policy

the party newspapers throughout the state, and sought by influence publicly and privately applied to gain concerted action. The proposal of 1846 that the whig central committee choose the candidates for the

of

state election

shows how far central control might be

tolerated.

Nevertheless the ''Whig Junto" in the whig party probably wielded far less power than the democratic In the middle thirties the opposition central group. seemed to regard as the controlling force the so-called Springfield clique, headed by a former Edwards man, George Forquer. At the end of the decade they believed there was a central group, controlling most of the democratic presses strong

enough

to dictate

'^^nr-.

lin's messages and to drive out of the party the elements opposed to the State Register. Apparently for a time the State Register itself was the main agency of By the middle forties the power party government.

had passed from the Register delegation

patronage.

tempted

to

strong

in

their

to

the

control

of

congressional the

federal

When Walters of the State Register atoppose them he suffered a decisive defeat.

The Whig and Democratic

;

Parties

was over the convention system that the line was In sharply drawn between whig and democrat.

It first

the special session of the legislature of 1835-6 the whigs in house and senate introduced resolutions attacking tiic

convention system and the other abuses suppi)scdlv foisted on the Jacksonian party by ^^ln Burcn; in the

manoeuvering over amendments to these it is hrst possible to distinguish the whig from the democrat. True,

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xlii

reelected by the Springfield clique, despite the sym-

pathy of the whigs with him, and his attempt to split the party on the bank issue. Snyder declined a reelection in 1838 and in time made his peace with the Casey, despite his heresy, ran without real op-

party.

position in 1838 and

was elected over

S.

was elected. In H. Anderson by

the year 1841 he the aid of

votes, but reelected for the last time.

In 1843, with

the state redistricted into seven districts, he to

whig

went down

defeat and party regularity was at last avenged.

The

position of the democratic party on principles

by 1838 had

at last definitely

taken form.

The

heart of

was the sentence used on the heading of Blair's newspaper. The Globe, "The world is too much governed." From this old text of JefTersonian democracy they preached the doctrine of strict construction of the powers of the government on such matters as internal improvements and corporation charters. The their creed

more

radical teachings of the 'ioco focos" or radical

democrats, equal rights,

human

rights versus property

danger of the control of politics by organcame with a good grace from the party that had divorced the government from the nioneycd interests forever as it fondly thought by the passage of The party had generally, also, the subtreasury act. given its support to the democratic principle of prerights, the

ized capital

emption rights for actual settlers in the public lands though by the irony of fate the final act of IS41 was a whig measure combining preemption with a distribuIn political tary scheme that never went into effect. organization system.

it

professed allegiance to the convention

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

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xjiii-

The

principles of the Illinois whigs of that period so easy to fathom and based rather on prejudice than principle. On principle they disapproved the

were not

convention system, preferring the old loose system of self or committee nomination. Men with great personal influence in their localities due to their abilities or to their wealth, to

who wished

congress or to general

kindly

to

own way when elected assembly and who did not take their

party discipline were naturally whigs rather

Dismayed at the heights to which the masterful Jackson had raised the powers of the presidency, they set up the doctrine of English and American whigs of the 18th century that the legislative power than democrats.

should be above the executive.

Essentially a bourgeois

party in their beliefs, the whigs generally nourished a

prejudice against foreigners, especially lic

Roman

Catho-

foreigners, a prejudice aggravated by the fact that

the Irish canal laborers and the

German

refugees of

were attracted by the name of the democratic party. On national issues the whigs hesitated to They were for a shoulder Clay's distribution bill. tariff and avowedly for a bank of the United States. Compared to the Illinois of 1818 it was a new world in which whigs and democrats contended. Tlie newspapers had increased in size and intensity. Editors were no longer sneering at the factional rivals of their masters; they were contending over measures and principles on which the future of America, nay of tlie human race, depended. The iniquities of local politicians paled before the iniquities of Clav or \ m\ Rurcn the thirties

even

as the iniquities of

iniquities

of

their

those

measures

men

paled before the

and

principles.

The

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xllv

methods of

politics

had undergone

tion than the newspapers.

of 1840, with

The

a greater

presidential

'

.^ij

revolu-

•

campaign

appeals to symbols like coon skins and . hard cider, to sentiment, to mob psychology, would have been a thing unimaginable in 1820 or 1824, or even in the great

its

uprising of 1828.

had become democratized. The day was the meed of gentility had passed in the In 1826 Edwards had campaigned like a

Politics, too,

when

office

twenties.

v

feudal lord asking the suffrage of his vassals; in 1828 he found that Forquer's being a mechanic worked like a

charm with

the voters.'

The opera

bouffe campaign

of 1830 between John Reynolds and William Kinney would have been unthinkable five years before. Democracy, uncouth but fervid, had taken the state by storm* leadership there still was, but it was no longer the leadership of social superiors. In the campaign of 1840 the whigs came very near success in Illinois by seeking

through the symbols of log cabins, hard cider, and fraternizing of bankers and mechanics that the

whig party was

tin

mugs,

to

show

the true representative of fron-

democracy. Wliat attitude the After Harrison came Tyler. democratic party should take toward this nondescript states rights Virginia abstractionist elected as a whig was the important question of the years 1841-44. His tier

bank

vetoes, unquestionably democratic,

off against the repeal

passage of the

of

tariff of

the

1842.

patronage, and good democrats a dole

from the president.

^Illinois

Intelligencer,

Eddy Mss. \

Aug.

3,

had

to

be

and the _

Above

was the

all

there

held out their

hands tor

Moreover, old party 182o

;

set

subtreasury act

Kdwanls

to

l-Milv.

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'

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were wearing out and new ones had to be sought. The last of the Indians had been removed from the state ten years before. The question of the public lands was less discussed perhaps because men had come to believe that the preemption act of 1841 was as far as the older states would go to satisfy the West, perhaps "because in the boom times of the thirties many men had at length' bought government land at $1.25 an acre and did not care to see it sold cheaper. But there was still the farther \\'est and families who had drifted into Illinois in one generation, but would inevitably drift out of another,

would be

it

in

interested in the cause of national ex-

pansion, and the democrats accordingly could take up for

what they were worth

the rising issues of

Oregon

and Texas. By 1843 the reannexation of Texas and the. reoccupation of Oregon were an important note in popular meetings in Illinois, but ominously the Texas issue was more popular in the southern part of the state and the Oregon in the northern. When the Tyler men had finally sold their Texas issue to the democrats and had again taken their place

in the

democratic ranks

in

1844

the state, though not enthusiastic about the nomination of

Polk for the presidency, had acquiesced.

The main our period in

is

interest in Illinois politics thereafter in

1843 the state

three.

The

Beginning instead of congressmen elected seven

in the congressional elections.

redistribution caused the defeat of Casey,

the rebel of 1837.

The

battle in the congressional dis-.

tricts resulted in victories in all

crats.

elected

but one for

In the Springheld, or seventh

John

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

xlvl

*-?;

Douglas defeated Orville H. Browning; in the fourth John Wentworth beat Giles Spring. Joseph P. Hoge defeated Cyrus Walker in the sixth. In the third district O. B. Ficklin was nominated by a convention and elected. In the second John A. McClernand, a convention nominee, beat Casey. In the first district Robert Smith was a convention nominee after a factional struggle and elected In the

ings.

fifth district

over a whig.

In 1844 Reynolds, trying

pendently against Smith

as a

completely overwhelmed.

nominee

allied

run inde-

In 1846 Smith, running

Lyman Trumbull, with Reynolds. The

an independent, beat elected in

to

convention nominee, was

1843 remained in congress

democrats 1847, and

six till

generally working together in party politics were

prove the strongest force the next five years.

in the

as

the convention

m

democratic party for

Walters, editor of the Springfield

State Register, and head of the Springfield clique, chal-

lenged Polk's policy of letting the delegation decide on contest followed in appointments within the state.

A

which Walters got

the worst of

it

the editorship of the State Register.

and resigned from

The

inlUicnce of

the delegation was sufficient to elect Douglas senator, and the election to the governorship in 1846 of an apparently colorless figure, Augustus C. French, carried with it no menace to their power. So far as their whig rivals were concerned the democrats had little or noth-

ing to fear in Illinois politics.

The new

however, saw the development of a Illinois: opposition to slavery and opposi-

forties,

force in

tion to southern slaveholders. to the

introduction of slavery

The

days of opposition

in the state in

1S_'4

when

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

v'»l

xlvii

men themselves had deplored the existence slavery, when Jefferson, the great southern opponent

southern of

was still living, had passed away. Days had followed in which the South had heralded the exist-,

of slavery

ence of slavery as the cornerstone of southern prosperity and in

which numbers of pro-slavery men in had silenced roughly any protests

the northern states

against the existence of the peculiar institution.

Illi-

was no exception, as was evidenced by the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy of Alton in 1837, as, rifle in hand, he was seeking to protect his printing press against a pro-slavery mob; but by the late thirties New Englanders, who had moved straight west, as well as those who had stopped a generation on thei'r way in western New York, were beginning to muster strength in t^-'e nois

northern part of the

The

state.

organization of the

hard on the organization of the anti-slavery societies and the establishment of abolition or liberty newspapers. The party that could muster liberty party followed

but a hundred votes for in

1840 was

to

make

a

its

candidate for president

more respectable showing on

the governorship in 1842, and a year or so later to form

force in the northern congressional district which John Wentworth, himself a New Englandcr did not a

worth while antagonizing and which melted the whig strength like snow in the sun. However, the policy of Polk's administration on point after point was such as to outrage the feelings ot northern democrats who, disliking slavery, nevertheless

think

it

thought

it

unfitting to criticize by speech or act the

institution of a large part of the union.

To

begin with,

Polk had compromised with Oreat Britain on Orcg(Mi,

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

^./

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.

naturally a free territory, and insisted up to the hilt on the extreme

boundary claims

men claimed had been

of Texas,

which southern

destined by the Almighty to the

institution of negro slavery. The Illinois delegation. Wentworth among them, had fought hard on behalf of Oregon in congress, and Wentworth's chagrin was great when it became apparent that Polk's compromise would carry. Such measures of Polk's administration, as

the levying of a tax on tea and coffee, primarily

luxuries of the laborers of the North, only deepened the

anger of the northern constituencies.

Polk's vetoes of

river and harbor bills despite the fact that he

member

made

a

of the delegation his confidant, in 1847 drove

Wentworth and

his northern district almost to the point

of revolt.

Wentworth was to remain in the party professing hope that the nomination of Lewis Cass, a Michigan man, for the presidency in 1848 would set all straight; but tiie democracy of northern Illinois was torn by the his

free soil defection.

The

election of 1848 presaged the

North turning republican day when were to prevail against the democracy of Egypt and allying themselves to New England and the East were to overthrow in the Civil War the phuUcr aristocracy the farmers of the

of the South.

State and Local Issues Issues of state and local politics played a part in elections nearly if not quite as important as national issues; but state issues,

it

is

difficult to estimate the

impossible to estimate local

inlUicnce ot issues.

The

division of a county, the change of a ci)untv seat, the location of a road even were important matters; the

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION division of

Sangamon county was

xliIX

a vital

and compli-

cating issue in the general assembly election in 1838.

very few cases do we possess the evidence to determine the influence on assembly elections of such

Yet

in

"

matters.

Questions of state policy on the other hand can be

known and considered

in

Something

detail.

of the

alignment on them can be known; but for the reason that that alignment usually does not correspond to that of the whig and democratic parties it is difficult to discuss.

Sometimes the

For

difficulty does not exist.

in-

stance in the election of 1840 the democrats mana^u-

vered the whigs into the position of seeming

and

to ad\-ocate

deny to aliens the right to vote \\\ For the first, Alexander P. Field, an state elections. original Jackson man, had been appointed secretary of state by Governor Edwards; but Field long since had become a whig; when Governor Carlin attempted to remove him the whigs in the senate knd the supreme life oft'ice

to

court took Field's side.

The

other question

is

a

more

complicated one. It must suffice that the democrats, depending on voters of foreign birth were vitally interand that in the 1840-41 session the democrats ested used the supreme court's supposed opposition to the right of aliens to vote as a pretext for reorganizing the ;

judiciary so as to destroy the the act through as a issue

was

took sides.

another

in

whig

majority, forcing

party measure.

which

The Mormons on

The Mormon

whigs and democrats

first

coming

to the state, a

block of perhaps 1,000 votes; were coveted by both parties, and both cooperated in securing them a charter

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

1

with wide powers for Nauvoo. They voted for Harrison in 1840 but in 1842 Smith announced that they would support the democrats. Their influence in politics

was attacked by Duncan

thenceforth the influence of against them.

campaign and the whigs was decidedly in

the

Till local sentiment forced their with-

drawal from the state the Mormons could be counted on to counterbalance the heavy whig vote in the northwest congressional district. On the internal improvement and banking issues, the two most important state issues between 1835 and 1848, it is difficult to apply the whig and democratic party labels. In 1835 a so-called bank was chartered with a capital of $1,500,000. In 1835 also the charter of the old

tended

to

Bank 1857 on

of Illinois at

Shawneetown was

a capital of a million.

ex-

In 1836 the

general assembly provided for a loan of half

a

million

on the credit of the state for the construction of the

and Michigan canal endowed by congress in 1827 with a land grant. In 1837 the state embarked on an internal improvement scheme of six millions. In tlie same year the assembly voted that the state capital be permanently located at Springfield. Between these various measures there was a close political relation but hardly one to be described in terms of whig and Illinois

democrat.

was a purclv local one in over her various rivals triumphed which Springfield by astute mancruvering on the part of her wliig deleThe state capital gation, the famous 'T.ong Nine." had been located at Vaiulalia for\t\vcntv years; but tlic town was small and had ;in unpleasant reputation tor

The

state capital issue

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

lii

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subscribe additional millions of paper capital to the state bank and the bank of Illinois, and on the dividends from it was to pay the interest on European loans for the internal

improvement system

should realize earning power.

its

democrats

mammon The

supporters*

All

assented

to

the

thus

until that system

estimates

whigs

of

fabulous

many

of

the

friends

of

the -

and

making

>

of unrighteousness.

mirage do not come within this narrative. Suffice it to say that fund commissioners for canal and internal improvement details of the shattering of this

system bid against each other for foreign capital, exceeded their powers, and had their transactions temporarily disallowed until the credit of the houses with which they dealt was impaired; that through mercantile failures blocks of bonds on which the state had received little or nothing were thrown on the market that other bonds were pledged to pay interest; that the banks not only failed to pay dividends according to calculation, but speculated recklessly, got into difficulBy 1841 the state ties, and saw their notes depreciate. was left with stock in two moribund banks, a debt even the amount of which could not be calculated without legal advice, a partially finished canal and a few scraps of railroad useless as far as earning power was con;

cerned.

,A

In 1838 the democrats tried to put the whigs in

opposing the internal improvement scheme, through the attitude of Duncan aiul ot Cvrus The whigs Edwards, whig candidate for governor.

the

position

of

generally favored internal improvements at least by private corporations but regarded the "system" as in-

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

' '

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Again, however, the sectional issue clouded the party one. Southern democrats and whigs alike joined in passing an act levying a twenty cent tax on each hundred dollars of property. But the law was judicious.

indefensible to a people unused to taxation and the

democrats were compelled

to join the

whigs in a call which pro-

for a special session of the general assembly

vided for the virtual abandonment of the system. Henceforth the question was as to finding means

from bankruptcy. The secand Michigan canal

of extricating the state interested

tions

urged

its

in

the

completion

Illinois

as a

source of future revenue; but

the session of 1840-41 adjourned without

The

provision for continuing the work. not pay the interest on

every hand; one

its

member

making any state

could

bonds, hard times were on. of the legislature declared

were the only business few men urged repudiation,

that magistrates and constables

men in his district. among them some of

A

more radical democrats. In was sentiment in favor of escap-

the

northern Illinois there

ing by drawing the Illinois-Wisconsin boundary ac-

cording

to the

Northwest Ordinance and thereby

in-

cluding the northern tiers of counties in Wisconsin.; The whigs, content to leave with the democrats responsibility for the system, could propose no remedy but a tariff and distribution national whig measures among the states of the proceeds of the sales of the pub-

—

lic

Duncan,

land.

whig

ticket

The

in

1842, ran for governor on the

with no definite program.

solution of the difficulty

was found bv the

democratic governor, Thomas Ford, elected in 1842, with the aid of the moderate dciiKKrats

who managed

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

liv

_._

in the assembly to wind up the state banks, and to come to an agreement with the state's creditors by which they should advance enough for the completion of the Illinois and Michigan canal on the pledge

of

canal

the

The

state tax.

and

its

resources

and

moderate

a

rush of population into Illinois

made

loomed so large in the forties but a small the fifties and sixties. The democrats gained

the debt that

thing in

the prestige of saving the situation.

In 1846 their candidates for governor and lieutenant governor swept the boards, the whigs being able to find no men of ability to

make the race. The democratic

however, far from united on the essential question of banking. There were radical democrats ''cane brake hunting shirt democracy" who held that all transactions of high finance were iniquitous, that the state should make no irrepealable terms with its creditors, and above all that party was,

—

there should be no banks of any sort, for

banks but paper money mills

to

what were

cheat honest farmers

out of their lands and give them rags instead?

Led by

Lyman Trumbull and James H. Ralston this group had hampered Ford's scheme; as the elections for the; constitutional convention of 1847 came on many democrats even, distrusted

The whigs

the anti-bank

men

insisted that party should not

as

extreme.

govern the

choice of delegates and by playing on the distrust oi the anti-bank men won their greatest triumph in years. In one rock ribbed democrat district after another wlugs

and if they had not a majority in the convention they had a minority strong enough to block •> ft extreme measures. ii .i». slipped

in,

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The

SPECIAL IN TROD UCTION

\

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advocates of moderation had won; and their

was a compromise and worse, an inconClause after clause such as those limiting the pay of governor and representatives marked the idealsof the simple rural democracy that was passing, but the constitution contained no prohibition of banks. It left constitution

gruity.

open to the financial development soon to be demanded by the newer industrial Illinois already growing up around Chicago. In a rural frontier commonwealth the ideal of democracy had triumphed over the aristocracy of gentility; it now had to maintain itself in a state being rapidly transformed by railrijads, cities, and business enterprize. the door

The Geographical As Illinois

several

to the it is

Distribution of Parties

geographical distribution of parties in

possible to generalize a

whig strongholds

little.

in the state,

There were

with outlying

dis-

were debatable ground. The main strength of the whigs was in Sangamon, and the counties formed from it; Tazewell and McLean they could usually count on. They mustered strong in Madison and Bond. At the height of their power they had a chain of tricts that

counties in the

Wabash

river country beginning with

Pope and with occasional breaks

like Gallatin

running

Usually they controlled Coles. At one time Champaign was debatable. In the northwest of the state in 1838 their control was solid to the line of Boone, De Kalb, and La Salle on the cast, and to McDonough and Fulton on the south. Hancock they lost through the coming of the Mormons, and as far

north as Vermilion.

Joseph Smithes choice of the democratic alliance. In one after another of the counties of the district the

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

Ivi

^-i::

party undermined their strength; in 1846 Killpatrick their candidate for governor could carry only Carroll, Rock Island, Mercer and Henderson. liberty

The

heart of the democratic power in the state was the solid block of inland counties between the Wabash

and the Mississippi. The counties of this district could be relied on for overwhelming majorities at any time.

From

this solid

ated.

The

nucleus the democrats' strength radi-

Mississippi river counties,

St. Clair,

Mon-:!

Randolph, and Jackson, were normally theirs but by smaller majorities. Occasionally one might slip into the whig column. One by one the democrats conquered the whig counties on the Wabash in 846 only Hardin, Edwards and Wabash, Coles, and Vermilion remained whig. In central Illinois, Macon, Shelby and the cou!^ties made from them were democratic, but not always by large majorities. roe,

1

;

...

In the north after 1836 the democratic strength lay in Cook and the surrounding counties. ''Democratic

Boone,"

De

Kalb, and

La

Salle

were

against the whigs of the northwest.

their outposts

In the military

was a battle ground in which Pike, Brown, and Fulton were always democratic, and the other counties debatable. To the east of the Illinois river Greene and Macoupin were democratic, Jersey whig, Morgan an tract

'.

even battle ground.

The

liberty party,

when

its

strength began to be a

was naturally strongest in the nortli. As early.. as 1842 it held the balance of power in Whiteside, Lee, Bureau, Putnam, and Knox. Hy 1S46 it hehl the balance in twelve counties; in Lake, Kane, and De Kalb factor,

it

was stronger than the whigs.

In 1847

.

in coalition in

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,

ail-:. 11 ^H

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION Lake county

it

convention.

Until

member

elected a

1848

it

Ivii

to the constitutional

tended unquestionably

to

weaken the whigs rather than the democrats. Having roughly blocked out the geographical alignment of parties we are confronted by the question Looking at the map, with the as to what caused it. chains of

whig

counties along the

Wabash and

Missis-

one is tempted in a spirit of flippancy to remark mountaineers are ever freemen, rivermen are inclined to be whigs; yet one hesitates to fix on anysippi,

that

if

Wabash or Mississippi men pursued in them that

thing in the climate of the

val-

leys or the occupations

lent

whiggish turn to their politics. It is almost equally vain to superimpose the political map on the soil map and generalize from the combination. Part of ^'^^ corn belt in Sangamon was undoubtedly wliig; but Macon and Piatt were stoutly democrat, and Champaign debatable. The Fox river valley was democratic, and Jersey consistently, Cumberland and Cass occasionally whig. How is one to generalize? a

The might be

origin of population in the various sections

more valid index

a

fortunately

we have

to their

Un-

politics.

not yet compiled statistics for the

sources of our population that are sufficiently basic to

be useful.

Possibly

it

was the Kentucky origin

of the

Sangamon and the English origin of those Edwards and Wabash that made those counties whig. New England may have been the source of the whiggism of the northwest, thougli the Bryants of Bureau county and John Wcntworth were New Engpioneers of

of

landers also.

New

Before deciding on the politics of

Englander

in the

days

when

New

l^jighuul

a

still

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

Iviii

had

one does well to inquire the portion of New England, or even of Massachusetts, from which he came. a frontier

Yet when

all is said

that an explanation

ment

is

the author

inclined to feel

is

which emphasizes

the personal ele-

nearer the truth than one that emphasizes the It may be instructive to consider for a

geographical.

moment

the basis on which contemporary politicians explained the fluctuations of politics. They ascribed

them usually

to a fatal defection

—which was the democratic of Sangamon, — or the trol

to

of the population.

weary

from

a

party machine,

reason for the

whig

con-

interests of certain classes

The democratic

papers were never

of dinning into the ears of their readers the fact

mechanics and farmers were democrats and the bankers, business men, merchants and their Privately at least the whigs would satellites whig. admit that a well to do merchant fit to be a bank director was likely to be of their party. The nativism of the whigs, their party measures, such as tariff and bank, that the honest

all

suggest an essentially bourgeois constituency.

may this

sees

We

suppose that places like Alton therefore where element mustered strong, were sure to be whig. But the story may be not so simple as that. One many an earnest conservative today who would

seem

.

to

have but

little

financial stake in the retention

and an occasional radical whose financial interests would seem naturally to dictate tQ him a support of things as they are. Tiic economic motive is to be taken into account in determining the actions and beliefs of men, but that motive to altcct the of the existing order,

conduct of

a

man must

in his

brain be translated into

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action;

Our

it

suffers

INTRODUCTION

strange

changes

daily experience teaches us that

in

'}»::. the

process.

men do

not act

from pure economic motives. Hero worship, personal like and dislike, the desire to seem and be consistent^ unwillingness to admit a mistake,

may

man

cause a

and doubtless

to

— any

one of these

disregard his economic interest;

in the Illinois of the thirties

and

^

forties

thousands of men voted the whig ticket who never balanced in terms of dollars and cents their respective gains under tariff or free trade or bank or subtreasury.

Loyalty to a principle, an organization, an individual, determined them. '

In

Election Laws 1818-1848

order

to

understand

the

election

returns

some consideration of the laws under which they were made is necessary. Generally speaking, the Illinois election law under the Constitution of for the period

1818 provided for popular vote for governor, lieutenant governor, senators and representatives in general assembly, representatives in congress and a few county officials.

The manner

which they were chosen was except for a few years when vote. in

by viva voce election, by ballot was substituted. Often coincident with election viva voce was the right of the elector to vote for governor and lieutenant governor anywiierc in the state,

and for representative, members of the general assembly, and county officers anywhere in the district or county in which he resided. The arguments for or against viva voce election when the question was under discussion about 1820 afford an interesting commentary on the political ideas of the time.

The arguments

in

favor of a vote by ballot

/.il

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SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

iL

Ixi

tenant governor for the same days with the provision that succeeding elections should take place on the

first

Monday

of August, 1822, and quadrennially thereafter. Returns of the election of governor and lieutenant governor were to be canvassed in the house of representatives in the general assembly.

Section that at the

article 2, of the constitution

4,

first

ate should

one

class to

the

fourth.

provided

session of the general assembly the sen-

be divided into two classes, the seats of

be vacant in the second year, the other

in

number

of

Sectfon 5 provided that the

senators and representatives

was

to

be apportioned by

the general assembly according to the

number

of white

inhabitants as established by the five year census. Until the inhabitants of the state amounted to 100,000 the

house of representatives was to number not less than 27 nor more than 36 and the number of senators was never to be less than one-third nor more than one-half

number

the

The

of the house of

representatives.

general assembly passed an act regulating It constituted the townships in elections in detail." the various counties as election districts, directing the first

court of county commissioners in each county to appoint three judges of election in each townsliip and the judges so chosen to appoint two clerks t)f election. The judges of election in each township were to choose a centrally located and convenient house as a election

except

that

in

the

district

phuc

containing

ot

the

county seat the election was to be held at tlie court house. The judges of the election were to give notice by posting in three of the most public places in the 1

Laivs of 1819,

p. 90.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

Ixli

township

any general election or eight days before any special election. In the absence of a judge of election, any justices of the peace in the township, or if no justice of the peace were present at. the election, any electors nominated by the remaining judges of election were to serve as judges. The polls were to remain open from eight in the morning until fifteen days before

six in the afternoon,

election

any

later

names

hour.

were

to

at

when

names

of persons

whose votes were

be provided, two in each township, by

the clerks of election.

Votes were

and the voters were required

ballot

the judges of the

eight they might open at

Poll books containing columns for

of voters and

rejected

except that

had not attended

to

be cast by secret

to vote in the

town-

which they resided. In making returns the judges were required,

ship in

in

spite of slight misspellings, to return votes for the per-

sons for

whom

they were intended to be given unless

the intention of the voter

was not

clear.

The

returns

by the judges of election and attested by the were to state in prescribed form the number of

certified clerks,

votes received for each person for each office voted for;

they were to be sent to the clerk of the county commissioners court of the county within ten days, one poll

book going to the county clerk and the other remaining with the judges of election. On the fifteenth day after the close of the election, or at any earlier date after the returns were all in, the clerk of the county commission ers court, associating

with himself

peace of the county were

make

to

tvvo justices of the

canvass the returns -^nA In

out abstracts of the votes cast in the county.

case several counties

voted

together for senator, the

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The

then he shall withdraw."

\xv^^

act specified that the

returns must be made by the judges of the election within four days after the close of the election and that

county commissioners

in case of a tie the clerk of the

court was to decide it by lot. The act of 1823' increased to four the

which might be laid off county seat. This number was

precincts the

by the

act of 1825 to five,'

by the

in

^

number

of

each county beside

successively increased act of 1827 to six,'

by

the act of 1829 to seven.' The act of 183P allowed the county commissioners to install additional poll books at The act of 1847' specified that the the county seat.

county commissioners were not one set of judges in an election

more than any precinct where

to establish

in

300 votes were usually polled.

The

act of 1823 restored vote

allowed the elector district in

to

which they were

if

he voted in

to

vote for

by ballot and further

vote for officers anywhere in the to

be chosen, provided that

which he was not entitled he was to present an open ballot

a precinct in

all oft"ices

in order that the judges rnight be satisfied that he

voted only for the offices for which he had vote.

The

had

a right to

provision of the act of 1821 that the polls

should be open from eight to seven was continued. The act further allowed the governor to call a special elec-

vacancy to the general assembly, prosession was to be held. The act of 182S put

tion in case of a

viding a

'

^La'U's of 1S23, p.

-Imi'S of 1S25,

53.

p.

166.

^l.a^vj of 1S27, p.

1S7.

*Lmvs

S^-Si.

of 1S29.

[>.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

Ixvi

.

^,x:

the closing hour for the polls at five and specified that

the votes in all elections for electors for president and vice president might be cast anywhere within the state.

The

act of 1827'

provided that thereafter electors of president and vice president should be chosen on a general ticket throughout the state on the first Monday in November, that returns should be made by the clerks of the county commissioners court within fifteen days and that the returns should be audited by the secretary of state, auditor of public accounts and treasurer in the presence of the governor.

The

act of 1829'

made

the sheriff, rather than the

judges of election, responsible for giving notice of an

There was

election.

judges

the

a further provision that in case

election

of

failed

to

present might elect judges to

manner

of

fill

voting was continued

appear the voters the vacancy. as

viva voce.

The The

clerk of the county commissioners court was required to

make

his returns at least

election.

The

ernor continued

The

bly.

by the seventh day after the

election of governor and lieutenant govto

be canvassed by the general assem-

were officials and

elections of representatives in congress

henceforth to be canvassed by the state the election certified to by the governor.

was made

Provision

for a special election to be called by the secre-

tary of state in case of a vacancy in the office of gover-

In contesting elections the time for notice was extended to 30 days and the time for taking depositions nor.

to 60.

The

act set a special election for

congress on the 1831, 1

2

first

Monday

of

and provided for elections

Laivs of 1S27, Luivs of 1S29,

p.

188.

p.

54.

in

August 1832

members in

ot

the year

aiul biennially

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

Ixviii

chosen.

Ordinary election returns were

to

be

made

county commissioners court within judges of election were required to

to the clerk of the

seven days.

make

The

their return of the poll

book

to the clerk of the

county court within four days. As will be apparent from the ensuing pages these election laws were not strictly obeyed. In 1822, 1824,^ and 1826 contests based on the ground of technical breaches of the law were filed in the single county of Pike. Sheriffs or judges of election neglected to give

due notice of elections; judges of elections failed to appear; unauthorized polling places were set up; poll books were not returned; returns were not duly certified. For such reasons the votes of whole precincts were In many cases, too, ^ne. rejected or were never cast. feels that more than a bare technicality was involved and that sinister proceedings rather than ignorance lay behind such irregularities. But ignorance there was also. Not only did individual voters mistake the names and office for which they voted. Votes of whole precincts were returned for incorrect names, or on presidential elections cast for the presidential candidates.

The men

of the time were',

not consistent from year to year or from countv to county in dealing with such irregularities. It has been

impossible in preparing this publication to find anv principle for dealing with them that can be followed

with

consistency.

absolute

spellings of

names

of

Save

candidates,

for all

mis-

tlic user, if he iiave an age of individualism on impose rules

will be found duly noted; and

the courage to

minor

inconsistencies

may make them

consistent for himself.

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PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS

GOVERNOR AND LIEUTENANT GOVENOR ON CALLING A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION ON ADOPTION OF CONSTITUTION 1819-1848

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REPRESENTATIVE

IN

THE SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

Election August

2,

1819

Daniel P.

COUNTY -r*'.

Cook

"

John McLean

TOTAL

.,.

\'ote

ILLINOIS

3775'

2191

Per cent

1558

41-h

14—

32

86 -f

2

37

5

Bond^

61

59 23 36

97—

61

T2—

853

Clark First District Second District Third District Fourth District

Crawford

3

+

69

+

82

+

2

24 17 1

....

19

269

82

31-

174

187

40

23

4

151 13

38

Edwards^ Bon Pas

Per cent

+

58

Alexander

Rihlev

Vote

31

18-

143

37 7

6

Coffee

16

}^ tn})nrm.^

S3

25

Pnltuvrn

Franklin

129

29

Gallatin

177

6

22-f

100

78-

+

171

97—

3

23 15 IS

4 2

Saline

115

152

101

68

JefTerson

42

6

14

Johnson Cash

56

^'^

68

Eloise

j

48

32—

-{

36

86—

18 4 14

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CONGRESS,

1819

-3'.

Incliulcs 26 scattering votes. 1. Precinct returns from county clerk's office, Greenville. 2. No returns from five townships, for Includes one vote 3. Jonathan Mayo in the fourth district, seven votes in the second district for James McClane and 16 in the third for "Mclain." Precinct returns from county clerk's office, Albion. 4. Includes one vote for Hugh H. Maxwell in Kaskaskia precinct, one vote for "Mr. 5. McLean" in Plum Creek precinct. One vote for Cook, office not designated in Springfield precinct lias not been counted. 6. No returns from one township.

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS REPRESENTATIVE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS Election August

7,

1820

Daniel P. Cook

COUNTY

ILLINOIS'

6944^

Alexander

108

Bond

4593

East Fork

McCord

Clarke Dubois Pike

K

.

Kane

TOTAL Vote

Ripley

Elias

.

.

.

1055

Per cent

Vote

Per cent

65—

2445

+

73

68—

431 8 52 55 35 63 141 77

94—

27

6—

89

85—

4493 35

32

35

+

1

10 16

26 20

15 150

14

+

IS

25

WciVTie

Crawford

449

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CONGRESS,

S

1820

REPRESENTATIVE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS— Concluded Election August

7,

1820

Daniel P. Cook

COUNTY

Ellas

Madison*

1132

928

Per cent

82—

Vote 204

5

8

99 179

12

71

54 67

134 42 81

13 10 19

Six Mile Prairie

61

20

Wood

94 90

Goshen Greenfield

.

.

Monroe

318

234

Pope

3798

204

54 +

173

Randolph

5319

275 64 32

52—

255 115 26 24 42

St. Clair

Union

.

.

80

.

4

730

390

289'°

+

Covtnpton Crooked Creek ^hnnl Creek ^uonr Crpph 181

+

612

84—

118

16

286

+

104 31 73

27—

20 12

10-f

73

259

90—

63

6 5

3

35—

118 40

65+,

3

17 11

414

'

3

35

681

+

19

44 25 57

East North West

48

20

60 67

Carlyle

White

26

46—

33

277

Wayne"

+

84

62

9

Cash

Washington

18

1

74—

Creek Prairie du Rocher

Per cent

72

ppls Creek BoiDtty Layids Fork Prairie yl

Plum

Kane

TOTAL Vote

River

K

00 61

—

267

39

+

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

6 1.

No

oHiicial

retiirna

_^,

found for Oullalin, JcfFcrson, or Madison conntios. The Maditlio Eduardsville Spectator, August 22, 1820.

son county returns urc taken from 2.

Inchiilos

aix

sciittorinf^

votes.

Ineludes one vote for John McLean in McCord precinct. .^ Uetvirns from Union precinct rejected for informality. Includes one vote for John Cook in Dubois township. 5. ^j 6. Includes one vote for E. K. Kane. 7. Precinct returns from county clerk's office, Albion. Includes two votes for Kane not counted because the name was not written in 8. full. One vote for Cook, office not designated, has not been counted. 9. Includes one vote for "P. Copph" in Plum Creek precinct. 10. Inchides one vote for "D. Kain." One vote for Cook, office not df-signated, haa not been counted. 11. Returns from one precinct rejected for informality. 3.

4.

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PRESIDENT.

1820

T^C

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR Election November

6,

1820

First District

James B, Moore

COUNTY

William Kinney

TOTAL Vote

DISTRICT^ Bond

567^

259

85^

39

Perryville

Per cent

Vote

46— 50

39

Goshen Ridge Prairie Six Afile Prairie

150

16 17

27

18

.

10 4 .

50

6

26

Madison Apple Creek

34—

191

2 11

Ripley Vandalia

Per cent

20 3

13

+

19

+

9

8

11

.

Monroe

150

121

81—

29

St. Clair Scott

182

72 8

39 +

103

John

Y

57—

1

Sawyer

Abraham

Prewitt

COUNTY Vote

DISTRICT

Per cent

16—

89

Bond

\'ote

22

Per cent

4—

1

Perryville

1

Ripley Vandalia

Madison Apple Creek Goshen Ridge Prairie Six Mile Prairie

55—

82

74

.?

7

3

Monroe St. Clair Scott

21

/

4

7 /

.

—

14

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

-,.*'

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR— Continued Election November

6,

1820

Second District !

COUNTY

Michae

1

Jones

Peter

\'ote

Per cent

\'6te

Kimmel

TOTAL Per cent

i

DISTRICT^

5S2

1

«i

90

53—

9

47

—

8

57

+

44 37

46

+

73

+

Alexander

19

Franklin

14

43—

96

49—

Jackson

10

47 21 11

15-'

+

75

2 5

5

10

Johnson Bloomheld

30

6

22 8 14

20

6

Pope

Randolph

75

15

213

170

K-dsktishicL

7S

Afa T V

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PRESIDENT,

1820

.9

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR— Continued Election November

1820

6,

Second District

John Edgar

Elisha Mills

COUNTY Vote

DISTRICT

Per cent

48

8

+

5

5

+

Vote

Per cent

—

3

1

2

7—

Alexander

Jackson BtowHSvills

5

Goeuid Alississippi

Prairie

Johnson Vtcnnci

^;-»

Pope Randoloh Kaskaskia,

Plum Creek ^'hrifi

upld

Union T nn p^htirn

Washington

42 33

20—

1

8

1

1—

1

1

1

1

—

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

10

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR— Concluded Election November

6,

1820

Third District

Adolphus

F.

Hubbard

COUNTY

Charles

Will iam

Campbell

Cam pbell

total' 1

Per

j

cent

\'ote

DISTRICT^

294

Clark

li

Crawford

102

Albion Palestine

Edwards

81—

238

10

93 16 77

91

\

10

100

67 13

71

+

cent

+

9

3

9

9—

8

—

28

29

+

28

54

W a\'n6

16—

Per

Vote

/

1

95

47

cent

1

.

'

Gallatin

Per \'ote

34

30

88-^

4

S3

38

rJ

H

12— 28

+

White of Sc-pteinber 4, 1S20, the governor divided the state into thre« for the choice of presidential electors. Includes four votes in Bond county, Ripley precinct, for Abraham Prickett. and two in Vandalia precinct for James Moore. 1.

By proclamation

districts 2.

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