McClures Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 4, March, 1896 | Page 6

St. Louis a mob destroyed the greater part. The
remainder he succeeded in getting to Alton, but a mob met it there and
threw it into the river. The citizens of Alton, ashamed of this act, gave
Mr. Lovejoy money to buy a new press. At first the tone of the paper
was moderate, but gradually it grew more emphatic in its utterances
against slavery. The pro-slavery element of the town protested,
indignation meetings were held, and in August, 1837, his press was
thrown into the river. Another was immediately bought, which, in
September, followed its predecessor to the bottom of the Mississippi.
When it was known in Alton that Mr. Lovejoy had ordered a fourth
press, and had resolved to fight the opposition to the end, a public
meeting was called, at which many speeches were made on both sides,
and he was urged to leave Alton. This he refused to do, and his fourth
press was landed on November 6, 1837. The next night a mob attacked
the warehouse where it was placed, and in the riot one of the assailants,
Lyman Bishop, and Elijah Lovejoy himself were killed.]
The members came to Vandalia full of hope and exultation. In their
judgment it needed only a few months of legislation to put their State
by the side of New York; and from the opening of the session they
were overflowing with excitement and schemes. In the general
ebullition of spirits which characterized the Assembly, Lincoln had
little share. Only a week after the opening of the session he wrote to a
friend, Mary Owens, at New Salem, that he had been ill, though he
believed himself to be about well then; and he added: "But that, with
other things I cannot account for, have conspired, and have gotten my
spirits so low that I feel I would rather be any place in the world than
here. I really cannot endure the thought of staying here ten weeks."
Though depressed, he was far from being inactive. The Sangamon
delegation, in fact, had their hands full, and to no one of the nine had
more been entrusted than to Lincoln. In common with almost every
delegation, they had been instructed by their constituents to adopt a
scheme of internal improvements complete enough to give every

budding town in Illinois easy communication with the world. This for
the State in general; for Sangamon County in particular, they had been
directed to secure the capital. The change in the State's centre of
population made it advisable to move the seat of government northward
from Vandalia, and Springfield was anxious to secure it. To Lincoln
was entrusted the work of putting through the bill to remove the capital.
In the same letter quoted from above he tells Miss Owens, "Our chance
to take the seat of government to Springfield is better than I expected."
Regarding the internal improvements scheme he feels less confident:
"Some of the legislature are for it, and some against; which has the
majority, I cannot tell."
[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864.
From a photograph by Brady, and kindly loaned by Mr. Noah Brooks
for this reproduction.]
[Illustration: Frontispiece of "Alton Trials," a small volume published
in 1838, containing full notes taken at the time of the trial of the
persons engaged in what is called the "Alton riot." Twelve persons
were indicted "for the crime of riot committed on the night of the 7th of
November, 1837, while engaged in defending a Printing Press from an
attack made on it at that time by an Armed Mob;" eleven others were
indicted "for a riot committed in Alton on the night of the 7th of
November, 1837, in unlawfully and forcibly entering the warehouse of
Godfrey Gilman and Company, and breaking up and destroying a
printing press." In both cases the juries returned a verdict of "not
guilty." (See note on Elijah Lovejoy.)]
It was not long, however, before all uncertainty about internal
improvements was over. The people were determined to have them,
and the Assembly responded to their demands by passing an act which
provided, at State expense, for railroads, canals, or river improvements
in almost every county in Illinois. To compensate those counties to
which they could not give anything else, they voted them a sum of
money for roads and bridges. No finer bit of imaginative work was ever
done, in fact, by a legislative body, than the map of internal
improvements made by the Tenth Assembly of Illinois.

There was no time to estimate exactly the cost of these fine plans. Nor
did they feel any need of estimates; that was a mere matter of detail.
They would vote a fund, and when that was exhausted they would vote
more; and so they appropriated sum after sum: