g 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 Constitution. 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 Constitutional 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