53

largely a creation of Douglas, Sidney Breese, the Dodges of Iowa and Wisconsin, and other Democratic politicians who hoped to give the West a new stimulus not unlike that which DeWitt Clinton had given when he opened his Erie Canal. The capital for the venture had been found in New York and Boston. The same group of men directed the affairs of the Illinois Central that directed the Panama Railroad and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company-Aspinwall, Robert Schuyler, president of the New York Central, and Thomas Ludlow, president of the Panama Railroad Company, all Democrats and all deriving great benefits from the subventions of the federal government. The Mobile and Ohio Railroad, which received a grant of land from the federal government at the same time the Illinois Central received its grant, was likewise under the same control. Thus a group of capitalists living in New York and Boston. connected with the transportation interests of New England and the Middle States, controlling the only means of transit across the Isthmus of Panama, interested in the larger commercial affairs of China and India, exercised great power in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and the states southward toward the Gulf. They were in closest affiliation with senators and representatives and had been accustomed to control politics when it suited their interests to do so. Yet the "Illinois Central ", in spite of its conservative, even reactionary, intentions, contributed largely to the success of Lincoln and his party. The immense tract of land lying in middle Illinois which it had received from the national government was sold rapidly to immigrants from New England and from Germany. The land agent of the road published a guide to foreigners which was widely circulated in Germany and which directed all new-comers to this region.55 About one million acres of land was disposed of to settlers during the years 1856 to 1857 and a great many of the 411,900 souls added. to the population of Illinois alone between 1856 and 1860 came as a result of the railroad development. Towns sprang up along the railways in a phenomenal manner; Dunleith, for example, counted a population of 5 in 1850 and 2000 in 1859; Urbana had about 1000 in the former year and 4000 in the latter, while Centralia was an open prairie in 1854 and a thriving town of 2500 five years later.56 The 63 W. K. Ackerman, Sketch of the Illinois Central Railroad; also an anonymous History of the Illinois Central (1900); Fergus Papers, no. 4. Early Illinois Railroads.

54 44 Memoirs of George W. Jones ", in manuscript, in the archives of the Iowa Historical Society.

Pamphlet reports of the Illinois Central Railroad, 1855 to 1860, in Chicago Historical Society Library.

people who came to the state at this time were Germans, English, Scotch, and New Englanders, and they brought with them opinions. and ideas hostile to slavery and to the South and they settled in the evenly balanced middle counties of Illinois where a few votes and a little anti-slavery propaganda counted for much. A comparison of the accompanying maps shows how the leaven was at work, how the hostile corporations were contributing mightily to the cause which they opposed. What I have said as to Illinois applies with equal force to Iowa, where conditions were similar and, as we have seen, the conflict was close.

The conservative trend which held back Chicago, Springfield, and other towns like Dubuque, Iowa, was counteracted by the foreigners, whose property interests had not overcome their idealism and who saw in Lincoln, despite his silence or quiet disclaimers, the champion of the essential American ideas of human equality and freedom. These little colonies planted in the border counties are responsible for the changes which the map discloses, while of course the stable majorities of the solid northern counties did the rest.

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The count showed that the Republicans polled in these states 387,603 votes, or a majority over all other candidates of only 30,000,5 while in the whole Northwest Lincoln's majority was only 6600 over all other candidates. A change of one vote in 27 would have given these states to Douglas, and a change of one vote in 20 would have given him the whole Northwest, and the contest would have been transferred to the national House of Representatives where the South would almost certainly have won.

It seems, therefore, fair to conclude that the flood-tide of Republican idealism was reached in 1856-1858; that the able and wellorganized aristocracy of the South came near to winning their point -an election in the House; that the property and religious influences of the Northwest compelled Lincoln and his advisers to recede from the high ground of 1856-1858; and finally that the contest was won only on a narrow margin by the votes of the foreigners whom the railroads poured in great numbers into the contested region. The election of Lincoln and, as it turned out, the fate of the Union were thus determined not by native Americans but by voters who knew least of American history and institutions.

Tribune Almanac, 1860.

WILLIAM E. DODD.

DOCUMENTS

1. Senator Few on the Second Session of the First Congress, 1790.

THE following letter, found by Dr. Edmund C. Burnett in Room 17 ("Overflow ") of the Capitol building at Atlanta, Georgia, in a bundle marked "Letters, 1790-1838", needs little comment. Its writer, Coloned William Few, had been a member from Georgia in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and was one of Georgia's first senators, serving in the Senate from March 4, 1789, to March 2, 1793.

Dear Sir

NEW YORK August 17th 1790

Congress has finished the business of the Session. We adjourned on Thursday last, after having passed forty eight Acts, which I imagine will, by this opportunity, be transmitted to you by the Secretary of State, whose duty it is. Some of them you will perceive are important and very interesting to the States and I am sorry to observe that those Acts which are of the highest importance were the most controverted, and are the least approved of. The Act for making provision for the National debt and assuming of the States Debts was more than six Months on its passage through Congress, and in its progress assumed various shapes, and was opposed on various principles. Some were for assuming of all the State Debts and funding of the whole National Debt at an annual Interest of six per cent-which would probably have swelled the Debt of the United States to more than 80 Millions of Dollars; and the yearly interest of this Debt it was contended the United States could pay with ease, if proper principles of taxation were established. Others were of opinion that policy forbid the United States involving of themselves in a greater debt than would be accumulated by funding of the Debt of the United States only at an Interest of four per cent, and some indeed were opposed to assuming, or funding on any principle. These clashing opinions were agitated in both Houses of Congress, until by a kind of compromise they produced the Act in its present form, with the assent of only a small majority of Congress. How far it will meet the approbation of the people of the States, a little time will discover.

Agreeable to this Act the Debt of the United States the ensuing year' will be 2,660,861 Dollars including the interest of the foreign Debt, and the Expenses of Government. This sum it is estimated can be raised from the duties on imports and tonage, but when the Interest becomes due on the assumed Debt, some other mode of taxation must unavoidably be adopted, and I find that some of our Statesmen are of opinion that it will be advisable to levy a direct tax either on the lands or poles of the Citizens; but the most prevailing opinion is that Congress will at their next Session pass a general Excise act and perhaps a Stamp Act. You see these measures all tend to a high toned Government, and it is easy to perceive that there are powerfull individuals that are Strenuous advocates for it, and I must confess to you, that I have my apprehensions that Congress will be disposed to run into that extreme; per1I. e., probable annual charges.