4th. For the improvement of the navigation of the Illinois and Wabash Rivers. 5th. For making surveys and estimates of such other works as may be considered of general utility. Resolved, that as the basis of the system, the improvements shall be constructed and owned by the state exclusively. Resolved, that for the purposes aforesaid, a loan of millions of dollars should be effected on the faith of the state, payable in such installments and at such times as shall be required in the progress of the works. Resolved, that portions of the lands granted to the state to aid in the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal should be sold from time to time, and the proceeds applied to the payment of interest on the said loan, until the tolls on the proposed improvements, together with such other means as the state may provide, shall be sufficient to pay the interest on such loan. These resolutions were referred to the Committee of the Whole, and upon them, as well as upon the bill which was subsequently reported, long, eventful, and important discussions took place. This plan was unfortunately rejected. It proposed the commencement of two roads, one traversing the state from north to south, the other from east to west, leaving to future Legislatures the task of providing for such other works as time, experience, and practical surveys and explorations might recommend. The idea of constructing two railroads only was too insignificant for the magnificent views of that day. A hundred roads would not have answered the pressing demands of an excited people, flushed with the deceitful prosperity of an inflated system of paper currency. To confine the works to these two roads would also have prevented the necessity for the state to embark as a partner in the state banks. The state was asked to authorize an increase in the banking capital of the state, to become a large stockholder in the state bank, and to make the state bank and its branches the depositories and fiscal agents of the state. All these propositions, presented in their most seductive forms, met with a firm, uncompromising hostility from Mr. Douglas. But the state was mad; no man could resist the storm which swept over it; and the entire system-internal improvements, increase of bank capital, subscription to the stock by the state, all passed by the most decided majorities, in February, 1837, and the Legislature adjourned on the 8th of March following. A brief synopsis of the "Act to establish and maintain a general System of Improvements," approved February 27, 1837, may not be out of place here. The act directs a survey of the route from Charleston, via the county seat of Clark County, to the most eligible point on the Great Wabash River between York and the line dividing the states of Illinois and Indiana. It makes appropriations as follows on account of the works enumerated: 1st. Improvement of the navigation of the Great Wabash River. $100,000 2d. For removal of obstacles to steam-boat navigation in Rock River......... 100,000 3d. For the Illinois River west of the 3d principal meridian.... 4th. Kaskaskia River........... 100,000 50,000 5th. Little Wabash River........ 50,000 6th. For a great Western mail route from Vincennes to Saint Louis......... 250,000 7th. For a railroad from Cairo to some point on the southern termination of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, via Vandalia, Shelbyville, Decatur, Bloomington, thence via Savannah to Galena 3,500,000 8th. For a southern cross-railroad from Alton to Mount Carmel; railroad from Edwardsville to Shawneetown, via Lebanon, Nashville, Pinckneyville, Frankfort, and Equality...... 1,600,000 9th. For a northern cross-railroad from Quincy, via Columbus, Clayton, Mount Sterling, Meredosia, Jacksonville, Springfield, Decatur, Sidney, Danville, and thence to the Indiana state line... 1,800,000 10th. For a branch of the Central Railroad from a point between Hillsboro and Shelbyville, thence through Coles and Edgar counties to the Indiana state line......... 650,000 11th. For a railroad from Peoria, through Fulton, Macomb, Carthage, to Warsaw..... 700,000 12th. For a railroad from Lower Alton, via Hillsboro, to the Illinois Central Road........ 600,000 13th. For a railroad from Belleville, via Lebanon, to intersect the Alton and Mount Carmel Railroad....................... 14th. For a railroad from Bloomington to Mackinaw, in Tazewell County, there to fork-one branch to connect with Peoria and Warsaw Railroad at Peoria, the other branch to pass Tremont to Pekin......... 150,000 350,000 A person who will take up the map of Illinois will see in the above scheme of improvements how carefully Chicago is avoided. South of and including Peoria, every representative and senatorial district is provided with one or more railroads passing through them. But, to make the bill even more palatable, the following provision was inserted, being the 15th appropriation: 15th. There shall be appropriated the sum of $200,000 of the first money that shall be obtained under the provisions of this act, to be drawn by the several counties in a ratable proportion to the census last made, through which no railroad or canal is provided to be made at the expense or cost of the State of Illinois, which said money shall be expended in the improvement of roads, constructing bridges, and other public works. Section 21 authorized the board of fund commissioners to contract for loans, etc., of eight millions of dollars at 6 per cent., redeemable at any time after January 1, 1870. Another section provided that all moneys obtained by the board from loans and otherwise should be deposited in some safe bank or banks. Section 33 authorized the commissioners, in locating the several roads where the lines did not touch county seats or important trading towns, to construct lateral branches of said railroads to said towns. Another important measure of that session was the continuation of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which had previously been commenced by the state, a grant of land to aid in its construction having been made by Congress. Douglas was an active and earnest supporter of this great work. Upon the best plan for constructing it there was a wide diversity of opinion. The "deep cut" was one plan, and eventually was adopted. It proposed a canal to be fed from the lake at Chicago, and to run along the Illinois River to its present termination, having all the necessary lockage and dams. The other plan was to put locks and dams upon the Illinois River, making it navigable for steam-boats up to the very highest point, and then connecting it by a canal to be constructed thence to Chicago. Douglas favored the latter plan. After a long and animated contest, the two houses found themselves unable to agree. The House of Representatives adopted and adhered to for many weeks that plan which had been so strenuously urged and approved by Douglas, while the Senate as strenu ously adhered to the other plan. For several weeks the contest between the two houses waxed warm; at last, there being great danger that the whole measure would fail, the Senate bill was somewhat modified (though its main features were retained) by a committee of which Douglas was a member, and was passed, he giving it his support, as better than no bill at all. Subsequent experience has not confirmed the wisdom of the Legislature. The plan adopted of a deep cut from the lake was in after years abandoned. Had the plan proposed by Douglas been adopted, the canal could have been completed for a sum less by several millions than would have been required to carry out the plan adopted by the Legislature. His speeches on this and other subjects at this session of the Legislature won for him the highest credit; his fame as an orator, but especially as a ready debater, was universal, and public men in all parts of the state sought his acquaintance and friendship. The Legislature adjourned in March, having laid the foundation of a public debt which, for nearly a quarter of a century, has loomed up, in all its hideous proportions, an object of terror and of oppression to the people of the great and fertile State of Illinois. All was excitement; the Legislature, before adjourning, elected the commissioners for the several works of improvements, and the number of officers necessary to carry on the grand system was by no means a small one. For a few weeks all seemed prosperous and brilliant. In May the banks of the entire country suspended specie payments, and then came a revulsion. The state bank and its branches went down with the others; the alliance between the state and the banks proved an unfortunate one. It is unnecessary to state more than the general result. The Illinois banks never resumed payment; the stock sunk very low; their paper depreciated as low at times as fifty or forty cents on the dollar; the state lost all, or nearly all that it had subscribed; and, after five or six years, the charters were repealed, and Illinois continued without banks until, under the new Constitution some years later, a general banking law was adopted. The Legislature, at that same session, passed an act providing for the removal of the seat of government from Vandalia to Springfield, the removal to take place on the 4th of July, 1839. In April, 1837, Mr. Douglas was appointed by the President register of the land office at Springfield, to which place he removed at once, and consequently vacated his seat in the Legislature. In consequence of the panic and its prospective effects upon the system of internal improvements, Governor Duncan called a special session of the Legislature to meet in July of that year. The signs of the times were portentous of a storm such as the country had never experienced; the commercial world had already experienced some of its most destructive force. The political sky was dark unto blackness. On the 4th of March a Democratic president had been inaugurated. He had been elected by a majority most decisive. A Congress had been chosen, in which those elected as his party friends were in a large majority. Financial ruin and general bankruptcy stood vividly conspicuous in the imagined future. Mr. Van Buren called an extra session of Congress. His first message proposed, as a remedy for the present and a preventive for the future, that long-abused and now cherished scheme, the SubTreasury. It was popularly styled the "Divorce Bill." It was to separate forever all connection between the banks and the national government. Mr. Van Buren soon found himself deserted by his party friends not only in Congress, but throughout the country. Nowhere was the defection greater than in Illinois. The delegation in Congress (all Democrats) refused to vote for the Divorce Bill-two of them giving as their reason a desire to consult with their constituents. These two subsequently continued Democrats, and one of them is now an honored and venerable member of the party in Illinois; the other never returned, and finally went over to the Opposition. The governor of the state, elected as a Democrat, renewed the assaults upon Mr. Van Buren which at the previous session he had made upon General Jackson. Members of the Legislature quailed before the storm. Many faltered, and a few openly joined the Whigs. Mr. Buchanan, with his peculiar faculty of finding and rewarding old traitors to the Democratic party, in 1858 rescued from an oblivion of over twenty years, to which he had been consigned by the Democracy of Illinois, one of these men who had so basely abandoned his party in the dark hour of its peril, and conferred upon him an office from which an honest, honorable gentleman was removed because he was a friend of Douglas! In 1837 the traitor was applauded by the Opposition for opposing his party, and in 1858 Mr. Buchanan heaped honors upon the same man for a like treachery! The Democracy was dismayed. For years they had had possession of the state government and all its patronage. Legislature and the governor, both elected as Democratic, were now opposed to them. Necessity demanded earnest and prompt measures for defense. The Opposition were strong, united, The |