in his message of January 3, 1826, said: "The tide of emigration,
which had been for several years checked by various causes, both general
and local, has again set in, and has afforded a greater accession of
population during the past, than it had for the three preceding years.
This addition to our population and wealth has given a new impulse to the
industry and enterprise of our citizens, and has sensibly animated the
face of our country. And as the causes which have impeded the prosperity
of the state are daily diminishing, and the inducements to emigration are
increasing, we may confidently anticipate a more steady and rapid
augmentation of its population and resources."(530)

From 1820 to 1825 the increase of population in Illinois was 17,655, while
from 1825 to 1830 it was 84,628. Contemporaries have left some interesting
records of immigration during the latter five years--a period in which the
population of the state increased more than 116 per cent. Immigration had
begun to be brisk by the fall of 1824. At the general election in August,
1820, there were 1132 votes cast in Madison county, while at a similar
election in August, 1824, there were 3223 votes cast in the same
territory, Madison county having been divided into Madison, Pike, Fulton,
Sangamon, Morgan and Greene counties. A Madison county newspaper said:
"That country bordering on the Illinois River is populating at this time
more rapidly than at any former period. Family wagons with emigrants are
daily passing this place [Edwardsville], on their way thither."(531)
During the five weeks ending October 28, 1825, about two hundred and fifty
wagons, with an average of five persons to each, passed through Vandalia,
bound chiefly for the Sangamo country.(532) The unsettled condition of the
slavery question from 1820 to August, 1824, is given as the cause of the
slight increase in population during that period, and the settlement of
the question is thought to have been a chief cause for the increase after
1824.(533) It must not be supposed, however, that any one cause excludes
all others. The country as a whole had scarcely recovered from the great
financial depression of 1819; Kentucky was in turmoil over her bank, land
titles and old and new courts;(534) early in 1825 over 65,000 acres in a
single county in Tennessee were advertised for sale for the delinquent
taxes of 1824;(535) and in 1826 a great drought in North Carolina caused a
marked emigration from t