Fifty Years of Public Service | Page 8

were declared elected. For this purpose 6,320 votes were cast--more than twice the number of legal voters.
Foreign affairs other than Spain's unfriendly activities also had a share in distracting attention. The United States paid Mexico ten million dollars to be free of the Guadalupe Hidalgo obligation to defend the Mexican frontier against the Indians.
My first experience after I was elected City Attorney, was to prosecute persons charged with violating the ordinances prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors. One of my preceptors, the Hon. Benjamin S. Edwards, was a strong and earnest temperance man. He volunteered to assist me in the prosecution of what we called "liquor cases." The fact is that for a time he took charge of the cases, and I assisted him. Life was made a burden to violators of liquor ordinances that year in Springfield.
The following year, 1856, was a Presidential year. I was chosen as an elector on what was called the "Fillmore Ticket." I did not at that time believe very strongly in Fremont for President. During the same year, I was nominated as a candidate for the House of Representatives of the Illinois Legislature, and was supported by both the Fillmore party and the Free-soil party and thus elected.
The House of Representatives of the Legislature of 1856 was so close that if all the members who had not been elected as Democrats united, they had one majority. If any one of them went to the Democrats, the Democrats would have the control. One of the men elected on the Fillmore ticket went over, thus giving the Democracy the coveted one necessary. The Republicans, or as they were then called, Free-soilers, attempted to organize the House by recognizing the clerk of the previous House, who was a Free-soiler, it then being the custom to have the clerk call the House to order and preside until a temporary organization was perfected. The Democrats refused to recognize the clerk whom the opposition recognized. The Democrats declared by vote the election of a temporary chairman, nominated and elected a sergeant-at-arms and a deputy, and ordered the two latter officers to carry the clerk out of the hall; which was promptly done at the expense of a good suit of clothes to the clerk who departed reluctantly. This was my first experience in legislation.
A careful reading of the annals of the State of Illinois will show that this incident is by no means unique in its history.
To go back a few years, when Edward Coles, who had been private secretary to President Madison, was elected Governor, it was by a mere plurality vote over his highest competitor, and--to use the language of former Governor Ford--he was so unfortunate as to have a majority of the Legislature against him during his whole term of service. The election had taken place soon after the settlement of the Missouri question. The Illinois Senators had voted for the admission of Missouri as a Slave State, while her only Representative in the Lower House voted against it. This all helped to keep alive some questions for or against the introduction of slavery.
About this time, also, a tide of immigrants was pouring into Missouri through Illinois, from Virginia and Kentucky. In the Fall of the year, every great road was crowded with them, all bound for Missouri, with their money and long trains of teams and negroes. These were the most wealthy and best educated immigrants from the Slave States. Many people who had land and farms to sell, looked upon the good fortune of Missouri with envy; whilst the lordly immigrant, as he passed along with his money and droves of negroes, took a malicious pleasure in increasing it by pretending to regret the short-sighted policy of Illinois, which excluded him from settlement, and from purchasing and holding lands.
In this mode a desire to make Illinois a Slave State became quite prevalent. Many persons had voted for Brown or Phillips with this view, whilst the friends of a Free State had rallied almost in a body for Coles.
Notwithstanding the defeat of the Democrats at this election, they were not annihilated. They had been beaten for Governor only by a division in their own ranks, whilst they had elected a large majority of each House of the Assembly, and were determined to make a vigorous effort to carry their measure at the session of the Legislature to be held in 1822-23. Governor Coles, in his first message, recommended the emancipation of the French slaves. This served as the spark to kindle into activity all the elements in favor of slavery.
Slavery could not be introduced, nor was it believed that the French slaves could be emancipated, without an amendment to the Constitution; the Constitution could not be amended without a new convention, to obtain which two