d
wonders in a decade. Governor Ford, all of whose earlier associations
were with the people of southern Illinois, writing about the middle of
the century, admits that although the settlers in the southern part of
the State were twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty years in advance, on
the score of age, they were ten years behind in point of wealth and
all the appliances of a higher civilization.[306] The completion of
the canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, however much
it might contribute to the general welfare of the State, seemed likely
to profit the northern rather than the southern portion. It had been
opposed at the outset by Southerners, who argued soberly that it would
flood the State with Yankees;[307] and at every stage in its progress
it had encountered Southern obstruction, though the grounds for this
opposition were more wisely chosen.

Political ideals and customs were also a divisive force in Illinois
society. True to their earlier political training, the Southern
settlers had established the county as a unit of local government. The
Constitution of 1818 put the control of local concerns in the hands of
three county commissioners, who, though elected by the people, were
not subjected to that scrutiny which selectmen encountered in the New
England town meeting. To the democratic New Englander, every system
seemed defective which gave him no opportunity to discuss neighborhood
interests publicly, and to call local officers to account before an
assembly of the vicinage. The new comers in northern Illinois became
profoundly dissatisfied with the autocratic board of county
commissioners. Since the township might act as a corporate body for
school purposes, why might they not enjoy the full measure of township
government? Their demands grew more and more insistent, until they won
substantial concessions from the convention which framed the
Constitution of 1848. But all this agitation involved a more or less
direct criticism of the system which the people of southern Illinois
thought good enough for Yankees, if it were good enough for
themselves.[308]

In the early history of Illinois, negro slavery was a bone of
contention between men of Northern and of Southern antecedents. When
Illinois was admitted as a State, there were over seven hundred
negroes held in servitude. In spite of the Ordinance of 1787, Illinois
was practically a slave Territory. There were, to be sure, stalwart
opponents of sla