sterner, wedded to the mistress of a Southern
plantation, Douglas represented a Commonwealth whose population was
made up of elements from all sections. The influences that shaped his
career were extraordinarily complex. No account of his subsequent
public life would be complete, without reference to the peculiar
social and political characteristics of his constituency.

The people of early Illinois were drawn southward by the pull of
natural forces: the Mississippi washes the western border on its
gulf-ward course; and the chief rivers within the State have a general
southerly trend.[302] But quite as important historically is the
convergence of the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee on the
southern border of Illinois; for it was by these waterways that the
early settlers reached the Illinois Territory from the States of
Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina. The apex of the
irregular, inverted triangle of Illinois, thrust down to the 37th
parallel of latitude, brought the first settlers well within the
sphere of Southern influence. Two slave States flanked this southern
end. Nearly one-half of Illinois lay south of a direct, westward
extension of Mason and Dixon's line.

In the early days, the possession by the Indians of the northern areas
accentuated the southern connections of Illinois. At the same time the
absence at the North of navigable waterways and passable highways
between East and West, left the Ohio and its tributaries the only
connecting lines of travel with the remote northern Atlantic States.
Had Illinois been admitted into the Union with the boundaries first
proposed, it would have been, by all those subtle influences which go
to make public sentiment, a Southern State. But the extension of the
northern boundary to 42 deg. 30' gave Illinois a frontage of fifty miles
on Lake Michigan, and deflected the whole political and social history
of the Commonwealth. This contact with the great waterways of the
North brought to the State, in the course of time, an immense share of
the lake traffic and a momentous connection with the northern central
and northern Atlantic States. The passing of the Indians, the opening
up of the great northern prairies to occupation, and the completion of
the Illinois-Michigan canal made the northern part of Illinois fallow
for New England seeding. Geographically, Illinois became the
connecting link in the slender chain which bound the men of the lake
and prairi