ll."

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864.

From a photograph by Brady, and kindly loaned by Mr. Noah Brooks for
this reproduction.]

[Illustration: Frontispiece of "Alton Trials," a small volume
published in 1838, containing full notes taken at the time of the
trial of the persons engaged in what is called the "Alton riot."
Twelve persons were indicted "for the crime of riot committed on
the night of the 7th of November, 1837, while engaged in defending
a Printing Press from an attack made on it at that time by an Armed
Mob;" eleven others were indicted "for a riot committed in Alton on
the night of the 7th of November, 1837, in unlawfully and forcibly
entering the warehouse of Godfrey Gilman and Company, and breaking up
and destroying a printing press." In both cases the juries returned a
verdict of "not guilty." (See note on Elijah Lovejoy.)]

It was not long, however, before all uncertainty about internal
improvements was over. The people were determined to have them,
and the Assembly responded to their demands by passing an act
which provided, at State expense, for railroads, canals, or river
improvements in almost every county in Illinois. To compensate those
counties to which they could not give anything else, they voted them
a sum of money for roads and bridges. No finer bit of imaginative
work was ever done, in fact, by a legislative body, than the map of
internal improvements made by the Tenth Assembly of Illinois.

There was no time to estimate exactly the cost of these fine plans.
Nor did they feel any need of estimates; that was a mere matter of
detail. They would vote a fund, and when that was exhausted they
would vote more; and so they appropriated sum after sum: one hundred
thousand dollars to improve the Rock River; one million eight hundred
thousand dollars to build a road from Quincy to Danville; four million
dollars to complete the Illinois and Michigan Canal; two hundred and
fifty thousand for the Western Mail Route--in all, some twelve
million dollars. To carry out the elaborate scheme, they provided a
commission, one of the first duties of which was to sell the bonds of
the State to raise the money for the enterprise. The majority of the
Assembly seem not to have entertained for a moment an idea that there
would be any difficulty in selling at a premium the bonds of Illinois.
"On the contrary," as General Linder says in his "Reminiscences," "the
enthusiastic friends of the measure maintai