by
sixty-six feet in size. Of the purchase money, two-thirds should go into
the stock of the Bank of Cairo, and one-third to a fund to build dykes to
keep the city from being flooded.(273) Considering the time and the
location, the scheme was utterly impracticable. "An Act to Incorporate the
Stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company" authorized the formation
of a company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, for the
purpose of cutting a canal through the peninsula between the Ohio and the
Mississippi. Within twelve years a canal sufficiently large for the
passage of a vessel of twenty tons burden should be completed. The company
was given the right of eminent domain.(274) Here again the character of
the project was unsuited to existing conditions. Population was increasing
rapidly at the time these laws were passed, but they required for their
success an increase much more rapid. They were, however, pleasing to the
settlers and the prospective settlers of the day.

On January 16, 1818, Mr. Pope, of Illinois, was appointed chairman of a
select committee to consider a petition from the Illinois legislature
praying for a state government. One week later the committee reported a
bill to enable Illinois to form such a government, and to admit the state
into the union. When the enabling act came up for discussion, Mr. Pope
offered the amendment which changed the northern boundary of Illinois from
a line due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, as provided
by the Ordinance of 1787, to a line running from that lake to the
Mississippi on the parallel of 42 deg. 30'. "The object of this amendment, Mr.
Pope said, was to gain, for the proposed state, a coast on Lake Michigan.
This would offer additional security to the perpetuity of the union,
inasmuch as the state would thereby be connected with the states of
Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, through the lakes. The facility
of opening a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, said Mr.
Pope, is acknowledged by every one who has visited the place. Giving to
the proposed state the port of Chicago (embraced in the proposed limits),
will draw its attention to the opening of the communication between the
Illinois River and that place, and the improvement of that harbor. It was
believed, he said, upon good authority, that the line of separation
between Indiana and Illinois would strike Lake Michigan south of Chicago,
and not pass west of