The Jefferson-Lemen Compact.
by Willard C. MacNaul.
NOTE
The materials here presented were collected in connection with the preparation of a history of the first generation of Illinois Baptists.
The narrative introduction is printed substantially as delivered at a special meeting of the Chicago Historical Society, and, with the collection of doc.u.ments, is published in response to inquiries concerning the so-called "Lemen Family Notes," and in compliance with the request for a contribution to the publications of this Society. It is hoped that the publication may serve to elicit further information concerning the alleged "Notes," the existence of which has become a subject of more or less interest to historians. The compiler merely presents the materials at their face value, without a.s.suming to pa.s.s critical judgment upon them.
W. C. M.
INTRODUCTION
RELATIONS OF JAMES LEMEN AND THOMAS JEFFERSON IN THE EXCLUSION OF SLAVERY FROM ILLINOIS AND THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY
In view of the approaching centennary of statehood in Illinois, the name of James Lemen takes on a timely interest because of his services--social, religious, and political--in the making of the Commonwealth. He was a native of Virginia, born and reared in the vicinity of Harper"s Ferry. He served a two-years" enlistment in the Revolutionary War under Washington, and afterwards returned to his regiment during the siege of Yorktown. His "Yorktown Notes" in his diary give some interesting glimpses of his partic.i.p.ation in that campaign.[1] His Scotch ancestors had served in a similar cause under Cromwell, whose wedding gift to one of their number is still cherished as a family heirloom.
Upon leaving the army James Lemen married Catherine Ogle, daughter of Captain Joseph Ogle, whose name is perpetuated in that of Ogle county, Illinois. The Ogles were of old English stock, some of whom at least were found on the side of Cromwell and the Commonwealth. Catherine"s family at one time lived on the South Branch of the Potomac, although at the time of her marriage her home was near Wheeling. Captain Ogle"s commission, signed by Gov. Patrick Henry, is now a valued possession of one of Mrs. Lemen"s descendants. James and Catherine Lemen were well fitted by nature and training for braving the hardships and brightening the privations of life on the frontier, far removed from home and friends, or even the abodes of their nearest white kinsmen.
During, and even before the war, young Lemen is reputed to have been the protege of Thomas Jefferson, through whose influence he became a civil and religious leader in the pioneer period of Illinois history.
Gov. Reynolds, in his writings relating to this period,[2] gives various sketches of the man and his family, and his name occurs frequently in {p.08} the records of the times. He was among the first to follow Col. Clark"s men to the Illinois country, where he established the settlement of New Design, one of the earliest American colonies in what was, previous to his arrival, the "Illinois county"
of the Old Dominion. Here he served, first as a justice of the peace, and then as a judge of the court of the original county of St. Clair, and thus acquired the t.i.tle of "Judge Lemen."[3] Here, too, he became the progenitor of the numerous Illinois branch of the Lemen family, whose genealogy and family history was recently published by Messrs.
Frank and Joseph B. Lemen--a volume of some four hundred and fifty pages, and embracing some five hundred members of the family.
True to his avowed purpose in coming to Illinois, young Lemen became a leader of anti-slavery sentiment in the new Territory, and, undoubtedly, deserves to be called one of the Fathers of the Free State Const.i.tution, which was framed in 1818 and preserved in 1824.
His homestead, the "Old Lemen Fort" at New Design, which is still the comfortable home of the present owner, is the birthplace of the Baptist denomination in Illinois; and he himself is commemorated as the recognized founder of that faith in this State, by a granite shaft in the family burial plot directly in front of the old home. This memorial was dedicated in 1909 by Col. William Jennings Bryan, whose father, Judge Bryan, of Salem, Illinois, was the first to suggest it as a well-deserved honor.
James Lemen, Sr., also became the father and leader of the noted "Lemen Family Preachers," consisting of himself and six stalwart sons, all but one of whom were regularly ordained Baptist ministers. The eldest son, Robert, although never ordained, was quite as active and efficient in the cause as any of the family. This remarkable family eventually became the nucleus of a group of anti-slavery Baptist churches in Illinois which had a very important influence upon the issue of that question in the State. Rev. James Lemen, Jr., who is said to have been the second American boy born in the Illinois country, succeeded to his father"s position of leadership in the anti-slavery movement of the times, and served as the representative of St. Clair county in the Territorial Legislature, the Const.i.tutional Convention, and the State Senate. The younger James Lemen was on terms of intimacy with Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, and {p.09} his cousin, Ward Lamon, was Lincoln"s early a.s.sociate in the law, and also his first biographer. Various representatives of the family in later generations have attained success as farmers, physicians, teachers, ministers, and lawyers throughout southern Illinois and other sections of the country.[4]
The elder James Lemen was himself an interesting character, and, entirely apart from his relations with Jefferson, he is a significant factor in early Illinois history. His fight for free versus slave labor in Illinois and the Northwest derives a peculiar interest, however, from its a.s.sociation with the great name of Jefferson. The principles for which the latter stood--but not necessarily his policies--have a present-day interest for us greater than those of his contemporaries, because those principles are the "live issues" of our own times. Jefferson is to that extent our contemporary, and hence his name lends a living interest to otherwise obscure persons and remote events. The problem of free labor versus slave labor we have with us still, and in a much more complex and widespread form than in Jefferson"s day.
According to the current tradition, a warm personal friendship sprang up between Jefferson and young Lemen, who was seventeen years the junior of his distinguished patron and friend. In a letter to Robert, brother of James Lemen, attributed to Jefferson, he writes: "Among all my friends who are near, he is still a little nearer. I discovered his worth when he was but a child, and I freely confess that in some of my most important achievements his example, wish, and advice, though then but a very young man, largely influenced my action." In a sketch of the relations of the two men by Dr. John M. Peck we are told that "after Jefferson became President of the United States, he retained all of his early affection for Mr. Lemen"; and upon the occasion of a visit of a mutual friend to the President, in 1808, "he inquired after him with all the fondness of a father."[5]
Their early relations in Virginia, so far as we have any account of them, concerned their mutual anti-slavery interests. Peck tells us that "Mr. Lemen was a born anti-slavery leader, and had proved himself such in Virginia by inducing scores of masters to free their slaves through his prevailing kindness of manner and Christian arguments."
Concerning {p.10} the cession of Virginia"s claims to the Northwest Territory, Jefferson is thus quoted, from his letter to Robert Lemen: "Before any one had even mentioned the matter, James Lemen, by reason of his devotion to anti-slavery principles, suggested to me that we (Virginia) make the transfer, and that slavery be excluded; and it so impressed and influenced me that whatever is due me as credit for my share in the matter, is largely, if not wholly, due to James Lemen"s advice and most righteous counsel."[5]
Before this transfer was effected, it appears that Jefferson had entered into negotiations with his young protege with a view to inducing him to locate in the "Illinois country" as his agent, in order to co-operate with himself in the effort to exclude slavery from the entire Northwest Territory. Mr. Lemen makes record of an interview with Jefferson under date of December 11, 1782, as follows: "Thomas Jefferson had me to visit him again a short time ago, as he wanted me to go to the Illinois country in the Northwest after a year or two, in order to try to lead and direct the new settlers in the best way, and also to oppose the introduction of slavery into that country at a later day, as I am known as an opponent of that evil; and he says he will give me some help. It is all because of his great kindness and affection for me, for which I am very grateful; but I have not yet fully decided to do so, but have agreed to consider the case." In May, 1784, they had another interview, on the eve of Jefferson"s departure on his prolonged mission to France. Mr. Lemen"s memorandum reads: "I saw Jefferson at Annapolis, Maryland, to-day, and had a very pleasant visit with him. I have consented to go to Illinois on his mission, and he intends helping me some; but I did not ask nor wish it. We had a full agreement and understanding as to all terms and duties. The agreement is strictly private between us, but all his purposes are perfectly honorable and praiseworthy."[6]
Thus the mission was undertaken which proved to be his life-work. He had intended starting with his father-in-law, Captain Ogle, in 1785, but was detained by illness in his family. December 28, 1785, he records: "Jefferson"s confidential agent gave me one hundred dollars of his funds to use for my family, if need be, and if not, to go to good causes; and I will go to Illinois on his mission next spring and take my wife and children."
Such {p.11} was the origin and nature of the so-called "Jefferson-Lemen Secret Anti-Slavery Compact," the available evidence concerning which will be given at the conclusion of this paper.[7] The anti-slavery propaganda of James Lemen and his circle const.i.tuted a determining factor in the history of the first generation of Illinois Baptists. To what extent Lemen co-operated with Jefferson in his movements will appear as we proceed with the story of his efforts to make Illinois a free State.
The "Old Dominion" ceded her "county of Illinois" to the National domain in 1784. Jefferson"s effort to provide for the exclusion of slavery from the new Territory at that date proved abortive.
Consequently, when James Lemen arrived at the old French village of Kaskaskia in July, 1786, he found slavery legally entrenched in all the former French possessions in the "Illinois country." It had been introduced by Renault, in 1719, who brought 500 negroes from Santo Domingo (then a French possession) to work the mines which he expected to develop in this section of the French Colonial Empire.[8] It is a noteworthy fact that slavery was established on the soil of Illinois just a century after its introduction on the sh.o.r.es of Virginia. When the French possessions were taken over by Great Britain at the close of the colonial struggle in 1763, that country guaranteed the French inhabitants the possession of all their property, including slaves.
When Col. Clark, of Virginia, took possession of this region in 1778, the State likewise guaranteed the inhabitants the full enjoyment of all their property rights. By the terms of the Virginia cession of 1784 to the National Government, all the rights and privileges of the former citizens of Virginia were a.s.sured to them in the ceded district. Thus, at the time of Lemen"s arrival, slavery had been sanctioned on the Illinois prairies for sixty-seven years. One year from the date of his arrival, however, the Territorial Ordinance of 1787 was pa.s.sed, with the prohibition of slavery, as originally proposed by Jefferson in 1784.[9] Thus it would seem that the desired object had already been attained. By the terms of the famous "Sixth Article of Compact," contained in that Ordinance, it was declared that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the accused shall have been duly convicted." This looks like a sweeping and final disposition of {p.12} the matter, but it was not accepted as such until the lapse of another fifty-seven years. But neither Jefferson nor his agents on the ground had antic.i.p.ated so easy a victory. Indeed, they had foreseen that a determined effort would be made by the friends of slavery to legalize that inst.i.tution in the Territory. Almost at once, in fact, the conflict commenced, which was to continue actively for thirty-seven years. Like the Nation itself, the Illinois country was to be for a large part of its history "half slave and half free"--both in sentiment and in practice.
Two attempts against the integrity of the "Sixth Article" were made during Gov. St. Clair"s administration. The trouble began with the appeals of the French slave-holders against the loss of their slaves.[10] As civil administration under the Territorial government was not established among the Illinois settlements until 1790, both the old French inhabitants and the new American colonists suffered all manner of disabilities and distresses in the interval between 1784 and 1790, while just across the Mississippi there was a settled and prosperous community under the Spanish government of Louisiana. When, therefore, the French masters appealed to Gen. St. Clair, in 1787, to protect them against the loss of the princ.i.p.al part of their wealth, represented by their slaves, he had to face the alternative of the loss of these substantial citizens by migration with their slaves to the Spanish side of the river. And, in order to pacify these pet.i.tioners, St. Clair gave it as his opinion that the prohibition of slavery in the Ordinance was not retroactive, and hence did not affect the rights of the French masters in their previously acquired slave property. As this view accorded with the "compact" contained in the Virginia deed of cession, it was sanctioned by the old Congress, and was later upheld by the new Federal Government; and this construction of the Ordinance of 1787 continued to prevail in Illinois until 1845, when the State Supreme Court decreed that the prohibition was absolute, and that, consequently, slavery in any form had never had any legal sanction in Illinois since 1787.[11]
It does not appear that Mr. Lemen took any active measures against this construction of the anti-slavery ordinance at the time. He was, indeed, himself a pet.i.tioner, with other American settlers on the "Congress lands" in Illinois, for the recognition of their claims, which were menaced {p.13} by the general prohibition of settlement then in effect.[12] Conditions in every respect were so insecure prior to the organization of St. Clair county in 1790, that it was hardly to be expected that any vigorous measure could be taken against previously existing slavery in the colony, especially as the Americans were then living in station forts for protection against the hostile Indians. Moreover, Jefferson was not in the country in 1787, and hence there was no opportunity for co-operation with him at this time. Mr.
Lemen was, however, improving the opportunity "to try to lead and direct the new settlers in the best way"; for we find him, although not as yet himself a "professor" of religion, engaged in promoting the religious observance of the Sabbath on the part of the "G.o.dfearing"
element in the station fort where, with his father-in-law, he resided (Fort Piggott). In 1789 Jefferson returned from France to become Secretary of State in President Washington"s cabinet, under the new Federal Government. He had not forgotten his friend Lemen, as Dr. Peck a.s.sures us that "he lost no time in sending him a message of love and confidence by a friend who was then coming to the West."
St. Clair"s construction of the prohibition of slavery unfortunately served to weaken even its preventive force and emboldened the pro-slavery advocates to seek persistently for the repeal, or, at least, the "suspension" of the obnoxious Sixth Article. A second effort was made under his administration in 1796, when a memorial, headed by Gen. John Edgar, was sent to Congress praying for the suspension of the Article. The committee of reference, of which the Hon. Joshua Coit of Connecticut was chairman, reported adversely upon this memorial, May 12, 1796.[13] It is not possible to state positively Lemen"s influence, if any, in the defeat of this appeal of the leading citizens of the old French villages. But, as it was in this same year that the first Protestant church in the bounds of Illinois was organized in his house, and, as we are informed that he endeavored to persuade the const.i.tuent members of the New Design church to oppose slavery, we may suppose that he was already taking an active part in opposition to the further encroachments of slavery, especially in his own community.
The effort to remove the prohibition was renewed under Gov. Wm. Henry Harrison, during the connection of the Illinois {p.14} settlements with the Indiana Territory, from 1800 to 1809. Five separate attempts were made during these years, which coincide with the term of President Jefferson, who had removed St. Clair to make room for Gen.
Harrison. Harrison, however, yielded to the pressure of the pro-slavery element in the Territory to use his power and influence for their side of the question. Although their proposals were thrice favorably reported from committee, the question never came to a vote in Congress. The first attempt during the Indiana period was that of a pro-slavery convention, called at the instigation of the Illinois contingent, which met at Vincennes, in 1803, under the chairmanship of Gov. Harrison. Their memorial to Congress, requesting merely a temporary suspension of the prohibition, was adversely reported from committee in view of the evident prosperity of Ohio under the same restriction, and because "the committee deem it highly dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision wisely calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the Northwestern country, and to give strength and security to that extensive frontier." Referring to this attempt of "the extreme southern slave advocates ... for the introduction of slavery," Mr. Lemen writes, under date of May 3, 1803, that "steps must soon be taken to prevent that curse from being fastened on our people." The same memorial was again introduced in Congress in February, 1804, with the provisos of a ten-year limit to the suspension and the introduction of native born slaves only, which, of course, would mean those of the border-state breeders. Even this modified proposal, although approved in committee, failed to move Congress to action. Harrison and his supporters continued nevertheless to press the matter, and he even urged Judge Lemen, in a personal interview, to lend his influence to the movement for the introduction of slavery. To this suggestion Lemen replied that "the evil attempt would encounter his most active opposition, in every possible and honorable manner that his mind could suggest or his means accomplish."[14]
It was about this time that the Governor and judges took matters in their own hands and introduced a form of indentured service, which, although technically within the prohibition of _involuntary_ servitude, amounted practically to actual slavery. Soon after, in order to give this inst.i.tution a more secure legal sanction, by legislative enactment, the {p.15} second grade of territorial government was hastily and high-handedly forced upon the people for this purpose. It was probably in view of these measures that Mr. Lemen recorded his belief that President Jefferson "will find means to overreach the evil attempts of the pro-slavery party." Early in the year 1806 the Vincennes memorial was introduced into Congress for the third time and again favorably reported from committee, but to no avail. It was about this time, as we learn from his diary, that Mr.
Lemen "sent a messenger to Indiana to ask the churches and people there to get up and sign a counter pet.i.tion, to uphold freedom in the Territory," circulating a similar pet.i.tion in Illinois himself.[15]
A fourth attempt to bring the proposal before Congress was made in January, 1807, in a formal communication from the Governor and Territorial Legislature. The proposal was a third time favorably reported by the committee of reference, but still without action by the House. Finally, in November of the same year, President Jefferson transmitted to Congress similar communications from the Indiana government. This time the committee reported that "the citizens of Clark county [in which was located the first Baptist church organized in Indiana], in their remonstrance, express their sense of the impropriety of the measure"; and that they also requested Congress not to act upon the subject until the people had an opportunity to formulate a State Const.i.tution[16]. Commenting upon the whole proceedings, Dr. Peck quotes Gov. Harrison to the effect that, though he and Lemen were firm friends, the latter "had set his iron will against slavery, and indirectly made his influence felt so strongly at Washington and before Congress, that all the efforts to suspend the anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787 failed."[17] Peck adds that President Jefferson "quietly directed his leading confidential friends in Congress steadily to defeat Gen. Harrison"s pet.i.tions for the repeal."[17]
It was about this time, September 10, 1807, that President Jefferson thus expressed his estimate of James Lemen"s services, in his letter to Robert Lemen: "His record in the new country has fully justified my course in inducing him to settle there with the view of properly shaping events in the best interest of the people."[18] It was during this period of the Indiana agitation for the introduction of slavery, {p.16} as we learn from an entry in his diary dated September 10, 1806, that Mr. Lemen received a call from an agent of Aaron Burr to solicit his aid and sympathy in Burr"s scheme for a southwestern empire, with Illinois as a Province, and an offer to make him governor. "But I denounced the conspiracy as high treason," he says, "and gave him a few hours to leave the Territory on pain of arrest."[19] It should be noted that at this date he was not himself a magistrate, which, perhaps, accounts for his apparent leniency towards what he regarded as a treasonable proposal.
The year 1809, the date of the separation of Illinois from the Indiana Territory, marks a crisis in the Lemen anti-slavery campaign in Illinois.[20] The agitation under the Indiana government for the further recognition of slavery in the Territory was mainly instigated by the Illinois slave-holders and their sympathizers among the American settlers from the slave states. The people of Indiana proper, except those of the old French inhabitants of Vincennes, who were possessed of slaves, were either indifferent or hostile towards slavery. Its partisans in the Illinois counties of the Territory, in the hope of promoting their object thereby, now sought division of the Indiana Territory and the erection of a separate government for Illinois at Kaskaskia. This movement aroused a bitter political struggle in the Illinois settlements, one result of which was the murder of young Rice Jones in the streets of Kaskaskia. The division was advocated on the ground of convenience and opposed on the score of expense. The divisionists, however, seem to have been animated mainly by the desire to secure the introduction of slavery as soon as statehood could be attained for their section. The division was achieved in 1809, and with it the prompt adoption of the system of indentured service already in vogue under the Indiana government. And from that time forth the fight was on between the free-state and slave-state parties in the new Territory. Throughout the independent territorial history of Illinois, slavery was sanctioned partly by law and still further by custom. Gov. Ninian Edwards, whose religious affiliations were with the Baptists, not only sanctioned slavery, but, as is well known, was himself the owner of slaves during the territorial period.
It was in view of this evident determination to make of Illinois Territory a slave state, that James Lemen, with Jefferson"s approval, took the radical step of organizing a {p.17} distinctively anti-slavery church as a means of promoting the free-state cause.[21]
From the first, indeed, he had sought to promote the cause of temperance and of anti-slavery in and through the church. He tells us in his diary, in fact, that he "hoped to employ the churches as a means of opposition to the inst.i.tution of slavery."[21] He was reared in the Presbyterian faith, his stepfather being a minister of that persuasion; but at twenty years of age he embraced Baptist principles, apparently under the influence of a Baptist minister in Virginia, whose practice it was to bar from membership all who upheld the inst.i.tution of slavery. He thus identified himself with the struggles for civil, religious, and industrial liberty, all of which were then actively going on in his own state.
The name of "New Design," which became attached to the settlement which he established on the upland prairies beyond the bluffs of the "American Bottom," is said to have originated from a quaint remark of his that he "had a "new design" to locate a settlement south of Bellefontaine" near the present town of Waterloo.[22] The name "New Design," however, became significant of his anti-slavery mission; and when, after ten years of pioneer struggles, he organized The Baptist Church of Christ at New Design, in 1796, he soon afterwards induced that body--the first Protestant church in the bounds of the present State--to adopt what were known as "Tarrant"s Rules Against Slavery."
The author of these rules, the Rev. James Tarrant, of Virginia, later of Kentucky, one of the "emanc.i.p.ating preachers," eventually organized the fraternity of anti-slavery Baptist churches in Kentucky, who called themselves "Friends to Humanity."
From 1796 to 1809 Judge Lemen was active in the promotion of Baptist churches and a Baptist a.s.sociation. He labored to induce all these organizations to adopt his anti-slavery principles, and in this he was largely successful; but, with the increase of immigrant Baptists from the slave states, it became increasingly difficult to maintain these principles in their integrity. And when, in the course of the campaign for the division of the Territory in 1808, it became apparent that the lines between the free-state and the slave-state forces were being decisively drawn, Lemen prepared to take a more radical stand in the struggle. With this design in view he asked and obtained the formal sanction of {p.18} his church as a licensed preacher. In the course of the same year, 1808, he is said to have received a confidential message from Jefferson "suggesting a division of the churches on the question of slavery, and the organization of a church on a strictly anti-slavery basis, for the purpose of heading a movement to make Illinois a free state."[21] According to another, and more probable, version of this story, when Jefferson learned, through a mutual friend (Mr. S. H. Biggs), of Lemen"s determination to force the issue in the church to the point of division, if necessary, he sent him a message of approval of his proposed course and accompanied it with a contribution of $20 for the contemplated anti-slavery church.
The division of the Territory was effected early in the year 1809, and in the summer of that year, after vainly trying to hold all the churches to their avowed anti-slavery principles, Elder Lemen, in a sermon at Richland Creek Baptist church, threw down the gauntlet to his pro-slavery brethren and declared that he could no longer maintain church fellowship with them. His action caused a division in the church, which was carried into the a.s.sociation at its ensuing meeting, in October, 1809, and resulted in the disruption of that body into three parties on the slavery question--the conservatives, the liberals, and the radicals. The latter element, headed by "the Lemen party," as it now came to be called, held to the principles of The Friends to Humanity, and proposed to organize a branch of that order of Baptists. When it came to the test, however, the new church was reduced to a const.i.tuent membership consisting of some seven or eight members of the Lemen family. Such was the beginning of what is now the oldest surviving Baptist church in the State, which then took the name of "The Baptized Church of Christ, Friends to Humanity, on Cantine (Quentin) Creek." It is located in the neighborhood of the old Cahokia mound. Its building, when it came to have one, was called "Bethel Meeting House," and in time the church itself became known as "Bethel Baptist Church."
The distinctive basis of this church is proclaimed in its simple const.i.tution, to which every member was required to subscribe: "Denying union and communion with all persons holding the doctrine of perpetual, involuntary, hereditary slavery." This church began its career as "a family church," in the literal sense of the word; but it prospered nevertheless, {p.19} until it became a numerically strong and vigorous organization which has had an active and honorable career of a hundred years" duration. Churches of the same name and principles multiplied and maintained their uncompromising but discriminating opposition to slavery so long as slavery remained a local issue; after which time they were gradually absorbed into the general body of ordinary Baptist churches.
During the period of the Illinois Territory, 1809 to 1818, Elder Lemen kept up a most energetic campaign of opposition to slavery, by preaching and rigorous church discipline in the application of the rules against slavery. He himself was regularly ordained soon after the organization of his anti-slavery church. His sons, James and Joseph, and his brother-in-law, Benjamin Ogle, were equally active in the ministry during this period, and, before its close, they had two churches firmly established in Illinois, with others of the same order in Missouri.
"The church, properly speaking, never entered politics," Dr. Peck informs us, "but presently, when it became strong, the members all formed what they called the "Illinois Anti-Slavery League," and it was this body that conducted the anti-slavery contest."[23] The contest culminated in the campaign for statehood in 1818.
At the beginning of that year the Territorial Legislature pet.i.tioned Congress for an Enabling Act, which was presented by the Illinois Delegate, Hon. Nathaniel Pope. As chairman of the committee to which this pet.i.tion was referred, he drew up a bill for such an act early in the year. In the course of its progress through the House, he presented an amendment to his own bill, which provided for the extension of the northern boundary of the new state. According to the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, the line would have been drawn through the southern border of Lake Michigan. Pope"s amendment proposed to extend it so as to include some sixty miles of frontage on Lake Michigan, thereby adding fourteen counties, naturally tributary to the lake region, to counterbalance the southern portion of the State, which was connected by the river system with the southern slave states. Gov. Thomas Ford states explicitly that Pope made this change "upon his own responsibility, ... no one at that time having suggested or requested it." This statement is directly contradicted in {p.20} Dr. Peck"s sketch of James Lemen, Sr., written in 1857. He therein states that this extension was first suggested by Judge Lemen, who had a government surveyor make a plat of the proposed extension, with the advantages to the anti-slavery cause to be gained thereby noted on the doc.u.ment, which he gave to Pope with the request to have it embodied in the Enabling Act.[24] This statement was repeated and amplified by Mr. Joseph B. Lemen in an article in _The Chicago Tribune_.[25] It is a well-known fact that the vote of these fourteen northern counties secured the State to the anti-slavery party in 1856; but as this section of the State was not settled until long after its admission into the Union, the measure, whatever its origin, had no effect upon the Const.i.tutional Convention. However, John Messinger, of New Design, who surveyed the Military Tract and, later, also the northern boundary line, may very well have made such a plat, either on his own motion or at the suggestion of the zealous anti-slavery leader, with whom he was well acquainted. As Messinger was later a.s.sociated with Peck in the Rock Spring Seminary, and in the publication of a sectional map of Illinois, it would seem that Peck was in a position to know the facts as well as Ford.
In the campaign for the election of delegates to the Const.i.tutional Convention, slavery was the only question seriously agitated. The Lemen churches and their sympathizers were so well organized and so determined in purpose that they made a very energetic and effective campaign for delegates. Their organization for political purposes, as Peck informs us, "always kept one of its members and several of its friends in the Territorial Legislature; and five years before the const.i.tutional election in 1818, it had fifty resident agents--men of like sympathies--quietly at work in the several settlements; and the masterly manner in which they did their duty was shown by a poll which they made of the voters some few weeks before the election, which, on their side, varied only a few votes from the official count after the election."[23]
It is difficult to determine from the meager records of the proceedings, even including the Journal of the Convention recently published, just what the complexion of the body was on the slavery question. Mr. W. Kitch.e.l.l, a descendant of one of the delegates, states that there were twelve delegates that favored the recognition of slavery by a {p.21} specific article in the Const.i.tution, and twenty-one that opposed such action. Gov. Coles, who was present as a visitor and learned the sentiments of the prominent members, says that many, but not a majority of the Convention, were in favor of making Illinois a slave state.[26] During the session of the Convention an address to The Friends of Freedom was published by a company of thirteen leading men, including James Lemen, Sr., to the effect that a determined effort was to be made in the Convention to give sanction to slavery, and urging concerted action "to defeat the plans of those who wish either a temporary or an unlimited slavery."[27] A majority of the signers of this address were Lemen"s Baptist friends, and its phraseology points to him as its author.
James Lemen, Jr., was a delegate from St. Clair county and a member of the committee which drafted the Const.i.tution. In the original draft of that instrument, slavery was prohibited in the identical terms of the Ordinance of 1787, as we learn from the recently published journal of the Convention. In the final draft this was changed to read: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall hereafter be introduced," and the existing system of indentured service was also incorporated. These changes were the result of compromise, and Lemen 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 Const.i.tutional 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 a.s.sumes 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."