The Jefferson-Lemen Compact | Page 9

consistently voted
against them. He was nevertheless one of the committee of three
appointed to revise and engross the completed instrument.
The result was a substantial victory for the Free-State Party; and had
the Convention actually overridden the prohibition contained in the
original Territorial Ordinance, as it was then interpreted, it is evident,
from the tone of the address to The Friends of Freedom, that the Lemen
circle would have made a determined effort to defeat the measure in
Congress.[27]
Dr. Peck, who, like Gov. Coles, was a visitor to the Convention, and

who had every opportunity to know all the facts, in summing up the
evidence in regard to the matter, declares it to be "conclusive that Mr.
Lemen created and organized the forces which confirmed Illinois, if not
the Northwest Territory, to freedom." Speaking of the current
impression that the question of slavery was not much agitated in
Illinois prior to the Constitutional Convention, Gov. Coles says: "On
the contrary, at a very early period of the settlement of Illinois, the
question was warmly agitated by zealous {p.22} advocates and
opponents of slavery," and that, although during the period of the
independent Illinois Territory the agitation was lulled, it was not
extinguished, "as was seen [from] its mingling itself so actively both in
the election and the conduct of the members of the Convention, in
1818."[26]
Senator Douglas, in a letter to James Lemen, Jr., is credited with full
knowledge of the "Jefferson-Lemen Anti-Slavery Compact" and a high
estimate of its significance in the history of the slavery contest in
Illinois and the Northwest Territory. "This matter assumes a phase of
personal interest with me," he says, "and I find myself, politically, in
the good company of Jefferson and your father. With them everything
turned on whether the people of the Territory wanted slavery or not, ...
and that appears to me to be the correct doctrine."[28] Lincoln, too, in a
letter to the younger James Lemen, is quoted as having a personal
knowledge of the facts and great respect for the senior Lemen in the
conflict for a free state in Illinois. "Both your father and Lovejoy," he
remarks, "were pioneer leaders in the cause of freedom, and it has
always been difficult for me to see why your father, who was a resolute,
uncompromising, and aggressive leader, who boldly proclaimed his
purpose to make both the Territory and the State free, never aroused
nor encountered any of that mob violence which, both in St. Louis and
in Alton, confronted and pursued Lovejoy."[29] Of the latter he says:
"His letters, among your old family notes, were of more interest to me
than even those of Thomas Jefferson to your father."
Jefferson's connection with Lemen's anti-slavery mission in Illinois was
never made public, apparently, until the facts were published by Mr.
Joseph B. Lemen, of the third generation, in the later years of his life,

in connection with the centennary anniversaries of the events involved.
However, the "compact" was a matter of family tradition, based upon a
collection of letters and notes handed down from father to son.
Jefferson's reasons for keeping the matter secret, as Dr. Peck explains,
were, first, to prevent giving the impression that he was seeking his
own interests in the territories, and, second, to avoid arousing the
opposition of his southern friends who desired the extension of slavery.
Lemen, on the other hand, did not wish to have it thought that his
actions were controlled by political considerations, or subject {p.23} to
the will of another. Moreover, when he learned that Jefferson was
regarded as "an unbeliever," he is said to have wept bitterly lest it
should be thought that, in his work for the church and humanity, he had
been influenced by an "infidel"; and, sometime before his death, he
exacted a promise of his sons and the few friends who were acquainted
with the nature of his compact with Jefferson that they would not make
it known while he lived.[30] Under the influence of this feeling on the
part of their father, the family kept the facts to themselves and a few
confidential friends until after the lapse of a century, when the time
came to commemorate the achievements of their ancestor.
How much of the current tradition is fact and how much fiction is hard
to determine, as so little of the original documentary material is now
available. The collection of materials herewith presented consists of
what purport to be authentic copies of the original documents in
question. They are put in this form in the belief that their significance
warrants it, and in the hope that their publication may elicit further light
on the subject. These materials consist of three sorts, viz.; a transcript
of the Diary of James Lemen, Sr.,