Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

palatable, the following provision was inserted, being the 15th appropriation:

15th. There shall be appropriated the sum of $200,000 of the first money that shall be obtained under the provisions of this act, to be drawn by the several counties in a ratable proportion to the census last made, through which no railroad or canal is provided to be made at the expense or cost of the State of Illinois, which said money shall be expended in the improvement of roads, constructing bridges, and other public works.

Section 21 authorized the board of fund commissioners to contract for loans, etc., of eight millions of dollars at 6 per cent., redeemable at any time after January 1, 1870. Another section provided that all moneys obtained by the board from loans and otherwise should be deposited in some safe bank or banks. Section 33 authorized the commissioners, in locating the several roads where the lines did not touch county seats or important trading towns, to construct lateral branches of said railroads to said towns.

Another important measure of that session was the continuation of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which had previously been commenced by the state, a grant of land to aid in its construction having been made by Congress. Douglas was an active and earnest supporter of this great work. Upon the best plan for constructing it there was a wide diversity of opinion. The "deep cut" was one plan, and eventually was adopted. It proposed a canal to be fed from the lake at Chicago, and to run along the Illinois River to its present termination, having all the necessary lockage and dams. The other plan was to put locks and dams upon the Illinois River, making it navigable for steam-boats up to the very highest point, and then connecting it by a canal to be constructed thence to Chicago. Douglas favored the latter plan. After a long and animated contest, the two houses found themselves unable to agree. The House of Representatives adopted and adhered to for many weeks that plan which had been so strenuously urged and approved by Douglas, while the Senate as strenuously adhered to the other plan. For several weeks the contest between the two houses waxed warm; at last, there being great danger that the whole measure would fail, the Senate bill was somewhat modified (though its main features were retained) by a committee of which Douglas was a member, and was passed, he giving it his support, as better than no bill at all. Subsequent experience has not confirmed the wisdom of

the Legislature. The plan adopted of a deep cut from the lake was in after years abandoned. Had the plan' proposed by Douglas been adopted, the canal could have been completed for a sum less by several millions than would have been required to carry out the plan adopted by the Legislature. His speeches on this and other subjects at this session of the Legislature won for him the highest credit; his fame as an orator, but especially as a ready debater, was universal, and public men in all parts of the state sought his acquaintance and friendship.

The Legislature adjourned in March, having laid the foundation of a public debt which, for nearly a quarter of a century, has loomed up, in all its hideous proportions, an object of terror and of oppression to the people of the great and fertile State of Illinois. All was excitement; the Legislature, before adjourning, elected the commissioners for the several works of improvements, and the number of officers necessary to carry on the grand system was by no means a small one. For a few weeks all seemed prosperous and brilliant. In May the banks of the entire country suspended specie payments, and then came a revulsion. The state bank and its branches went down with the others; the alliance between the state and the banks proved an unfortunate one. It is unnecessary to state more than the general result. The Illinois banks never resumed payment; the stock sunk very low; their paper depreciated as low at times as fifty or forty cents on the dollar; the state lost all, or nearly all that it had subscribed; and, after five or six years, the charters were repealed, and Illinois continued without banks until, under the new Constitution some years later, a general banking law was adopted. The Legislature, at that same session, passed an act providing for the removal of the seat of government from Vandalia to Springfield, the removal to take place on the 4th of July, 1839.

In April, 1837, Mr. Douglas was appointed by the President register of the land office at Springfield, to which place he removed at once, and consequently vacated his seat in the Legislature.

In consequence of the panic and its prospective effects upon the system of internal improvements, Governor Duncan called a special session of the Legislature to meet in July of that year. The signs of the times were portentous of a storm such as

the country had never experienced; the commercial world had already experienced some of its most destructive force. The political sky was dark unto blackness. On the 4th of March a Democratic president had been inaugurated. He had been elected by a majority most decisive. A Congress had been chosen, in which those elected as his party friends were in a large majority. Financial ruin and general bankruptcy stood vividly conspicuous in the imagined future. Mr. Van Buren called an extra session of Congress. His first message proposed, as a remedy for the present and a preventive for the future, that long-abused and now cherished scheme, the SubTreasury. It was popularly styled the "Divorce Bill." It was to separate forever all connection between the banks and the national government. Mr. Van Buren soon found himself deserted by his party friends not only in Congress, but throughout the country. Nowhere was the defection greater than in Illinois. The delegation in Congress (all Democrats) refused to vote for the Divorce Bill-two of them giving as their reason a desire to consult with their constituents. These two subsequently continued Democrats, and one of them is now an honored and venerable member of the party in Illinois; the other never returned, and finally went over to the Opposition. The governor of the state, elected as a Democrat, renewed the assaults upon Mr. Van Buren which at the previous session he had made upon General Jackson. Members of the Legislature quailed before the storm. Many faltered, and a few openly joined the Whigs. Mr. Buchanan, with his peculiar faculty of finding and rewarding old traitors to the Democratic party, in 1858 rescued from an oblivion of over twenty years, to which he had been consigned by the Democracy of Illinois, one of these men who had so basely abandoned his party in the dark hour of its peril, and conferred upon him an office from which an honest, honorable gentleman was removed because he was a friend of Douglas! In 1837 the traitor was applauded by the Opposition for opposing his party, and in 1858 Mr. Buchanan heaped honors upon the same man for a like treachery! The Democracy was dismayed. For years they had had possession of the state government and all its patronage. The Legislature and the governor, both elected as Democratic, were now opposed to them. Necessity demanded earnest and prompt measures for defense. The Opposition were strong, united,

and led by able, gallant men. As soon as the Legislature assembled Mr. Douglas proceeded to Vandalia. The benefit of the convention system, in uniting and concentrating the party in a close contest, had been demonstrated by him in Morgan County. No state convention of either party had ever been held in Illinois. A meeting of the Democratic members of the Legislature and other persons was held on July 27, 1837, to adopt some means to produce concert of action by the party in the elections of the ensuing year, and to prevent, if possible, any farther disintegration of the party. The result of this meeting was a call for a Democratic state delegate convention, to meet at Vandalia in the December following, to nominate candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. A committee of thirty of the most distinguished Democrats of the state was appointed to prepare and publish an address to the people of the state upon the existing condition of affairs, political and financial. Douglas, Shields, Richardson, M'Clernand, and Smith were members of this committee. A state central committee of five from each congressional district was also appointed. Thus was formed the organization of the Democratic party in the State of Illinois-an organization which has remained unbroken and unconquered for nearly a quarter of a century. In another place will be found its progressive history from 1837 to 1860.

The address shortly after appeared, and was published and circulated extensively throughout the state. It had much ef fect in staying the disaffection in the party produced by the general prostration of business and the urgent counsels of those public men who had abandoned the party. In the mean time, political discussions, generally of the warmest character, were frequent; and at most of these, now in Springfield, and now in some other city or county, Douglas braved the storm and upheld the banners of the Democratic party. The financial remedy proposed by Mr. Van Buren was particularly defended. It fully agreed with the policy which, during the winter before, he had so laboriously but so unavailingly urged upon the Legislature with respect to state affairs. He had opposed and denounced the connection of the state and its finances with the banks, and had predicted that the results of such a union would be disastrous. Time unfortunately proved that the predictions were well founded.

The state at that time had three members of Congress, elected from separate districts. That part of the state lying south of Morgan and Sangamon counties included two districts, while the vast region extending northward to the lake and to the Wisconsin line was all embraced in one district. The convention system was again put into operation, and the several counties sent delegates to Peoria in November, 1837, to nominate a candidate for Congress from this large district -the election not to take place until August, 1838, and the member elected not to take his seat until December, 1839. The convention was held, and the contest for nomination was an active one. Mr. Douglas was nominated; he was under twenty-five years of age at that time. The vast territory embraced within the district had been rapidly increasing in population during the previous five years; the work on the canal had drawn thousands of laborers to that part of the state. Politicians had heretofore confined their operations to the central and southern part of the state, and the north had been suffered to go uncared for. The great contest of 1840 was approaching, and it was necessary that this extensive region should be visited and secured for the party. Mr. Douglas was thought to be the man for the task. At the election in 1836, that district had given Harrison a majority of above three thousand over Van Buren. Unless it were attended to, the whole state would be in peril. With but faint hopes of an election, but with strong determination to strengthen the party by urging a union and combination hitherto unpracticed, if not unknown, he accepted the nomination. His opponent was the Hon. John T. Stuart, an eminent lawyer, a fine speaker, and a gentleman long and favorably known to the people. During the winter the contest was rather of a "scattering" character, but as soon as the spring opened sufficiently to admit of traveling, the two candidates set out upon their campaign, which, commencing in March, did not close until the very night before election.

This canvass is regarded as the most wonderful, under all the circumstances, that was ever held in the West. The candidates rode from town to town, speaking together every day except Sundays. The man who takes up the map of Illinois and looks at the territory embraced in that district, will not be surprised to know that, although the candidates spoke six

« ZurückWeiter »