Three Questions Determined Illinois' Fate

CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018

Volume 164, No. 82 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 163 years Three questions determined Illinois’ fate

n November and December taking because a later census This was of great importance of 1817, the legislature of Illi - showed that there were really because it was already clear that nois Territory set in motion only 34,620 inhabitants at the LAW AND the U.S. Constitution gave advan - the procedures to petition time of admission. By that time, PUBLIC ISSUES tages to slave states in Congress the U.S. Congress to admit Illinois was a state and nobody and the Electoral College. Be - Ithe territory as a state. (See my cared. cause slaves were counted as column of Dec. 4, 2017, “200 The northern boundary of the three-fifths of a person for pur - years ago, Illinois took step to state was a serious issue. The poses of apportionment of the statehood”) The next step was territory was bounded on the ANN M. House of Representatives, slave delivering the petition, formally west by the Mississippi River, on states had disproportionate called a memorial, to Nathaniel the south by the Ohio River and LOUSIN power in the House. Pope, the territorial delegate to on the east by the Wabash River Because House membership Congress. and a surveyor’s line going north was a factor in the Electoral Col - What must Pope have thought along the Indiana line to Lake lege, slave states also had dispro - when he received the memorial Michigan. Because the territory Ann M. Lousin has been a professor at portionate power in choosing the in early January, 1818? included what is now Wisconsin, The John Marshall Law School since president. 1975. Before then, she was a research He supported statehood for then a wilderness with few white assistant at the 1969-1970 Illinois In 1816, Congress admitted In - Illinois, but had no knowledge of inhabitants, it was necessary to constitutional convention and diana as a free state, and 1817 it the petition vote in Kaskaskia, determine the boundary between parliamentarian of the Illinois House of admitted Mississippi as a slave the territorial capital, in Decem - the state of Illinois and a new ter - Representatives. Her treatise “The state. By 1818, it was clear that if ber. He presented the memorial ritory, Wisconsin. Illinois State Constitution: A Reference Illinois came in as a free state, to the House of Representatives The Northwest Ordinance sug - Guide” was published in December another state would soon come in on Jan. 16, 1818. The House ap - gested that the northern bound - 2009. She can be contacted at as a slave state. In the spring of pointed a five-member commit - ary for states south of Lake [email protected]. 1818, Missouri was already agitat - tee, with Pope as chair, to Michigan be set at the “southern - ing for admission as a slave state. investigate the issue. most point” of the lake. However, creating a route all the way to In the end, Alabama was ad - Under Pope’s leadership, the Indiana had taken 10 miles of the Gulf of Mexico. Pope wanted mitted as a slave state in 1819; committee reported that it en - Lake Michigan shoreline when it Illinois to control the waterway Maine was admitted as a free dorsed the Illinois memorial and became a state in 1816. between the lake and the Missis - state in 1820; and Missouri was on Jan. 22 approved a draft bill Why couldn’t Illinois do the sippi. admitted as a slave state in 1821. for an enabling act for Illinois same in 1818? When Wisconsin was moving After the Missouri Compro - statehood. Due to the press of But Pope wanted Illinois to from territorial to statehood sta - mise, states admitted south of other business, the House did not have even more shoreline, at tus in the 1840s, it complained Missouri could have slavery, consider the bill until April 4. least 30 miles and perhaps 60 about Pope’s “land grab,” but by while states north of that line Meanwhile, Pope began prepar - miles. In the end, the bill set the then it was too late. Fate decreed could not. ing amendments to the draft, northern boundary as 42 de - that future inhabitants of north - The Illinois position on slavery and skeptical congressmen asked grees, 30 minutes, which is about ern Illinois would chant “bear was thus crucial. Many white Illi - whether Illinois was fit for state - 60 miles north of the southern down, Chicago Bears” — not noisans held slaves although hood. tip of the lake. “back the Pack.” some had qualms about the insti - There were three main issues: tution. But Illinois had to claim it • Did the territory have the was a free soil state, and it did. 40,000 population needed to [Nathaniel] Pope wanted Illinois to control the On April 14, 1818, Congress move from territorial status to passed the enabling act for ad - statehood? waterway between the lake and the Mississippi. mission ((15th Congress, First • What should the state’s Session, Chapter 67.) On April 18, northern boundary be? 1818, President James Monroe • Would Illinois be admitted as Pope wanted that northern - The third issue was that of signed his approval. a free soil state, one truly with - most border because he wanted chattel slavery. The Northwest How would Illinoisans proceed out slavery? Illinois to include the lead mines Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slav - under the enabling act? The an - Pope persuaded Congress to near Galena and the mouth of ery in all of the Northwest Terri - swer to that question is in the order a census taken by Illinois the Chicago River. tory and the states to be carved next column of this series. territorial officials. The count The Galena mines were a from it. Yet it was obvious that The author thanks the re - began on April 1, 1818, and result - great natural resource. Although there were black slaves, including search staff of the Biro Library ed in the territory’s claiming that the settlement at the mouth of some classified as “indentured of The John Marshall Law it had, most conveniently, 40,258 the river was still only a trading servants,” often for life. Some School and acknowledges her re - inhabitants in the area to be - post, there were already plans to members of Congress doubted liance upon a new book, “Creat - come the new state. There was develop a canal linking the whether Illinois was really com - ing the Land of Lincoln,” by certainly some creative census Chicago River to the Mississippi, mitted to being slave-free. Frank Cicero Jr.