Lincoln.
One incident of his legislative career stands out in such prominent
relation to the great events of his after life that it deserves special
explanation and emphasis. Even at that early date, a quarter of a
century before the outbreak of the Civil War, the slavery question was
now and then obtruding itself as an irritating and perplexing element
into the local legislation of almost every new State. Illinois, though
guaranteed its freedom by the Ordinance of 1787, nevertheless underwent
a severe political struggle in which, about four years after her
admission into the Union, politicians and settlers from the South made a
determined effort to change her to a slave State. The legislature of
1822-23, with a two-thirds pro-slavery majority of the State Senate, and
a technical, but legally questionable, two-thirds majority in the House,
submitted to popular vote an act calling a State convention to change
the constitution. It happened, fortunately, that Governor Coles, though
a Virginian, was strongly antislavery, and gave the weight of his
official influence and his whole four years' salary to counteract the
dangerous scheme. From the fact that southern Illinois up to that time
was mostly peopled from the slave States, the result was seriously in
doubt through an active and exciting campaign, and the convention was
finally defeated by a majority of eighteen hundred in a total vote of
eleven thousand six hundred and twelve.
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