some immediate employment yielding a pecuniary compensation was necessary. With thanks, he reluctantly but necessarily declined Mr. Bates's offer, and, seeing no opportunity of obtaining employment in St. Louis, he concluded to seek without delay some country town, where, if his earnings were small, his expenses at least would be far less than in the large city. His present search was an engagement as a teacher until spring, by which time he hoped with renewed health he might enter upon the great field of his ambition-the practice of the law.

Having recently read a book of travels in the Western States by a Scotchman, in which was given a charming description of that part of Illinois about Jacksonville, and having counted his money, and finding that he had barely enough left to enable him to reach that place, he resolved to make the last effort in that quarter, and trust to Providence and his own energies for the future.

At the time to which we refer, Illinois was settled principally in what is now the lower half of the state—in that part lying south of a line drawn east and west across the state, at what is the present northern boundary of Sangamon County; the counties of Sangamon and Morgan embracing the territory then included in the limits of half a dozen of the present counties of the state. The seat of government was at Vandalia, in Fayette County, but Sangamon and Morgan were the leading counties in point of population. In 1830, three years previously, the population of the state was as follows:

By a census taken under the authority of the Legislature of

1836-7 the population was ascertained to be:

The Hon. John Reynolds was governor, and Hon. Zadock

Casey lieutenant governor, they having been elected in August, 1830, to serve four years each.

The state was represented in Congress by the Hon. Samuel McRoberts and John M. Robinson in the Senate, and by three members in the House of Representatives.

The judiciary of the state consisted of a Supreme Court of four judges, holding office during good behavior, and a number of circuit courts. The circuit courts, having been erected by the Legislature, were within the control and subject to the action of the power that created them. They might be abolished or increased from time to time, as the Legislature might determine. The Supreme Court, however, being a tribunal erected by the Constitution, the judges held office by a tenure which could not be disturbed by any legislative action. The only possible modes by which the Legislature could reach that tribunal was by voting an address, to be voted for by two thirds of the members, asking for the removal of the judges; by impeachment, trial, and conviction of the judges; or by increasing from time to time the number of judges constituting the court. The judges of the Supreme Court, with the governor, constituted a Council of Revision, a majority of which council could approve, or could exercise a veto upon all acts of legislation. The Supreme Court at that time consisted, as has been stated, of four judges, viz., William Wilson, Thomas C. Brown, Theophilus W. Smith, and Samuel D. Lockwood. The state in 1832 had voted for General Jackson, and the Democratic party was in a decided majority.

The state had for a number of years been agitated upon the subject of internal improvements. That was the subject of local politics, entering more or less into the election of all state officers, particularly of members of the Legislature. Railroads and canals at that time were a subject as prolific in excitement, in speeches, in resolutions, and in politics as they have been at any subsequent period in the history of the state. At every session of the Legislature charters without number were granted for all manner of works of improvement, but these produced no results. A charter to build a road or cut a canal was almost valueless without the means or the credit to commence and go on with the work. As an indication of the extent to which this business was carried, the following table of railroads and canals authorized by acts of the Legislature previous to

the final adoption of a system in which the state was to become the paymaster will suffice.

In December, 1835, a special session of the Legislature was held. Previous to that time the following railroads had been authorized by law, companies having been incorporated with liberal charters for their construction:

At that special session the following were added to the list:

A grand total of 24 railroads, with an aggregate length
of 3287 miles, and one canal of 150 miles, making to-
gether of miles........

3437

Charters were liberal in their terms, and contractors were ready and willing to go on with the works upon the first appearance of money. But money there was none, and the issue had gradually been growing up before the people whether the state should or should not become a party to the construction of these works. The prospect of railroads or canals construct

ed by individual enterprise or capital was daily becoming more and more remote; and as that prospect receded, the policy of having the state embark in the grand enterprise assumed more significance, until at last it took shape and form, and became the eventful topic of the day. It had its friends and it had its opponents; for years the latter were the stronger, and Legislatures, reflecting the popular will, refused to commit the state to the internal improvement policy. A particular series of works formed the body of each proposed scheme, but these works were not of overruling local importance to those portions of the state having the main portion of the people, and consequently controlling the State Legislature. To overcome this great difficulty, the scheme of public works was each year increased by the addition of a new railroad, or branch connecting two or three counties, or giving the means of transportation from interior counties to creeks and streams, which were, with very little regard for truth, declared by act of Legislature "navigable rivers." We believe a steam-boat captain, deceived possibly by one of these acts of Legislature, attempted to ascend the "navigable" river Sangamon, and did succeed in reaching a small place called Portland, near Springfield, but the trip was never repeated, the boat having been compelled, for want of room to turn, to back down stream until it reached the Illinois River. Those who now pass the railroad bridge over the Sangamon River, on the Chicago, Alton, and St. Louis Railroad, a few miles north of Springfield, will have some difficulty in discovering the advantages of that point, the site of Portland, for a city with an extensive river trade. Yet, in olden times, that prospect was not deemed more visionary than that Chicago would be a city of a hundred thousand inhabitThe advocates of the internal improvements to be constructed by the state grew stronger each year. Many counties, once strong in their hostility to the great scheme, were revolutionized in sentiment by including in the general plan a railroad or a branch which was to enhance the value of the farms a hundred-fold, and give to each producer a cheap and rapid ride to market with his products. Who could withstand the temptation? Who could refuse to vote for a railroad to pass by his own door? The history of the last five years has shown that the men of 1835-6 were at least no more unwise than the men of 1859. Cities borne down with debt, counties

ants.

reduced to repudiation, and individuals utterly ruined by liberal subscriptions to railroads, indicate that the seductions of grand works of internal improvement have been as potent of late years as they were in the days when Illinois so unfortunately embarked in the business. In vain, however, was the plan of a general system presented. The flying bids for local support became so numerous and so heavy that they threatened destruction to the whole. The removal of the seat of government was agitated, and eventually that project became a powerful auxiliary to the improvement system. It is believed. that the delegation of a county having six members in the Lower House were enlisted in support of the improvement bill by the promise of the removal of the capital to the county seat of that county. Nor did this even turn the scale. Another and a more extensive bid for local support was included in the scheme. This was, that out of the first moneys borrowed on the faith of the state for works of internal improvement, a large sum (eventually fixed at $200,000) should be paid, in proportion to a census to be taken, to all the counties in the state through which no railroad or canal was provided to be constructed by the state!

The state was also, to some considerable extent, agitated upon the subject of General Jackson's bank policy. The bank had many interested, as well as political friends in the state. The policy of General Jackson was represented as fatal to the best interests of the people, because it destroyed the only reliable banking capital of the country. How was Illinois to prosper without roads and canals, and how were roads and canals to be constructed if the banks-the only capitalists of the country-were destroyed? These questions were propounded at every town-meeting and court-day, and many of the most devoted friends of Jackson shrank from a defense of what they knew not how to defend.

Pending these great questions, pending the consideration of measures fraught with so much evil to the state, and whose consequences are yet so severely felt, on a morning late in November, 1833, STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS stepped from a steam-boat at the town of Alton, and for the first time trod the generous soil and breathed the pure, free air of the Prairie State, Illinois. He lost no time in Alton, but at once proceeded by stagecoach to Jacksonville, where he arrived next day. He still lacked six months of being twenty-one years of age.