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© 2015 Sally E. Heinzel LIBERTY PROTECTED BY LAW: RACE, RIGHTS, AND THE CIVIL WAR IN ILLINOIS BY SALLY E. HEINZEL DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Bruce Levine, Chair Professor Frederick Hoxie Professor David Roediger, University of Kansas Assistant Professor Ronald Gifford, Illinois State University ii Abstract Illinois was a hostile place for free blacks to live before the Civil War. Its racial laws, built on the principles of white supremacy and exclusivity, were among the most restrictive in the antebellum North. Illinois’s legal code discouraged blacks from moving to the state and severely circumscribed the rights of those who did. Yet, only weeks before the Civil War ended, Illinois lawmakers repealed the state’s most oppressive black laws. This dissertation explores how the war destabilized the racial order that white Illinoisans had constructed. It travels from the home front to the frontlines in order to understand the ways civilians and soldiers responded to a war that evolved into an assault on slavery. As Illinois soldiers became willing participants in the process of emancipation, Republicans back at home strove to eliminate the vestiges of slavery by striking down state statutes that denied blacks natural rights and equal protection under the law. iii To my parents, Nancy and Steve iv Acknowledgements It takes a village to write a dissertation. This project never would have made it out infancy without the guidance and support I have received along the way. My advisor, Bruce Levine, deserves credit for setting me on this path. Little did I know that his suggestion to look into the repeal of Illinois’s black laws so many years ago would become the overarching focus of my graduate school years. From my first visit to campus as a prospective student, he has been an outstanding mentor. His encouragement, intellect, and kindness have shaped me as an historian and an individual. He and the rest of my committee— Dave Roediger, Fred Hoxie, and Ron Gifford—have generously given of their time and talents, for which I am deeply grateful. The collaborative and congenial environment of the History Department at Illinois has been a hallmark of my time there. Special thanks go to Simon Appleford, Bao Bui, David Greenstein, and Jay Jordan for their inspiration and moral support. We are fortunate to have such capable office staff who keep the department running. More than once I have been rescued by Tom Bedwell, Shannon Croft, and Elaine Sampson. Many thanks are due to the archivists at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Illinois State Archives, Filson Historical Society, and United States Army Heritage and Education Center who have provided invaluable research assistance. I am especially beholden to John Hoffmann, director of the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections here at UIUC. He never failed to amaze me with his breadth of knowledge on Illinois history. My chapter drafts benefitted tremendously from his thoughtful feedback. I have been kept afloat during this process by the generosity of the History Department at UIUC, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, the Illinois State Historical Society, and the v Illinois Society of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America. The year I spent as a fellow in the Cultures of Law in Global Contexts Intersect initiative expanded my disciplinary horizons. Thank you to the project leaders— Feisal Mohammed, Dan Shao, and Siobhan Somerville—and the 2013-14 fellows for pushing me into unfamiliar and fertile terrain. Last but certainly not least, I owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to my family. My long-suffering husband Andrew Hughes has patiently endured the unpleasantness of living with a graduate student for our entire married lives. He always figured out a way to apply twenty-first century solutions to my nineteenth-century problems. The database he built to organize my primary sources has been a beautiful island of order amid a sea of chaos. My daughter Emma Elizabeth was born during the writing of this dissertation. Her arrival spurred me to wrap up this project so I could focus on one of a different nature. Getting to know her has been my greatest joy. My mother-in-law Claudia Hughes gave me the most valuable resource of all—time—by watching Emma so that I could finish writing. She also gave me plenty of the second most valuable resource—coffee—to make sure I actually did. This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Nancy and Steve. As teachers, their passion for learning instilled in me a lifelong hunger for knowledge. As parents, their outpouring of love and encouragement gave me every advantage in life. Everything I have and will achieve, I owe to them. My mother passed away before I could compete this project, but the boundless support she provided along the way got me to the finish line. When I did research in Springfield, she often accompanied me to the archives and helped sort through stacks of folders. She transcribed dozens of letters and became better than me at reading nineteenth-century handwriting. She proofread everything I sent her way, not once but twice. She did all of this out of a mother’s love, something I am just now beginning to truly understand. I love you, Mom. vi Table of Contents Introduction: The Pendulum of War: Home Front, Politics, and Military ..................................... 1 Chapter 1: “We Can Legislate on Them as We Please”: Racial Borders in Illinois, 1847- 1853 .............................................................................................................................................. 21 Chapter 2: “It Is Not a Black, But a White Question”: Racial Politics on the Eve of the Civil War ...................................................................................................................................... 73 Chapter 3: “Going to Freedom”: Confiscation, Contrabands, and the Swell of Abolition ........ 114 Chapter 4: “There Can Be No Neutrals”: Dissension and Division on the Home Front, 1862 ............................................................................................................................................ 180 Chapter 5: “What Was Commenced as Rebellion Will End in Revolution”: Emancipation and Black Military Service ................................................................................. 239 Chapter 6: “Rights Which White Men Are Bound to Respect”: Towards the End of Slavery and the Repeal of the Black Laws ................................................................................ 295 Epilogue ..................................................................................................................................... 358 Appendix A: Illinois County Map ............................................................................................. 365 Appendix B: County Origins of Illinois Civil War Military Units ............................................ 366 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 374 1 Introduction: The Pendulum of War: Home Front, Politics, and Military On an August afternoon in 1859, Felix Morris paid $63 to purchase George Bowlen at a public auction. The buying and selling of human property was a common event throughout the South, but this particular incident attracted national attention. George Bowlen was a free black man, not a slave, and the auction took place at Carrollton, Illinois, a small town fifty miles southwest of the state capital. Bowlen’s crime, for which he was punished with sixteen months of forced labor, was living in the free state of Illinois.1 The statute criminalizing black settlement in Illinois was one example of the discriminatory legislation operating in the state prior to the Civil War. These “black laws” sought to impede blacks from settling in Illinois and subjugated those who did. Marginalized from political and civil life, the small population of blacks in the Prairie State lived without many of the basic legal protections and civil rights enjoyed by free blacks in other northern states. The law in Illinois viewed blacks as foreigners and, unlike European immigrants, denied them a lawful path to citizenship and the privileges associated with it. This changed during the Civil War. Two months before the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House, the Illinois general assembly repealed the state’s most extreme black laws, including the prohibition on black immigration. Five years later, a new state constitution removed all references to race. In a very short span of time, the legal barriers that excluded blacks from participation in civic and political life weakened. Although racial discrimination in 1 Carrollton Press, reprinted in the Illinois State Journal, August 29, 1859; New York Herald, September 9, 1859; Boston (MA) Traveler, September 10, 1859; Alexandria (VA) Gazette, September 14, 1859; Charleston (SC) Courier, September 14, 1859; and Providence (RI) Evening Press, September 8, 1859. Spellings of the last names vary, with some accounts identifying those involved as Felix Morton and George Bowlin. 2 various forms persisted throughout Reconstruction and beyond, the war had produced a new understanding of freedom in Illinois. This dissertation tells the story of how