African-American History in Illinois and Madison County

French Colonization of the Americas
The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century. (Click here for a map of French America in 1688.) They established colonies on a number of Caribbean islands and in South America. As they colonized the New World, they established forts and settlements which became cities such as Quebec and Montreal in Canada; Detroit, Green Bay, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Mobile, Biloxi, Baton Route, and New Orleans in the United States. France came to the New World to seek a new route to the Pacific Ocean, and to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.

The French were the first to explore the Illinois Country in 1673, when Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet descended the Mississippi. The French controlled the new territory, then known as “Illinois Country,” first as part of French Canada, and then as part of Louisiana. In 1699, priests of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions founded the Holy Family Mission at Cahokia – the first permanent settlement in Illinois Country.

Introduction of Slavery in Illinois Country
On September 14, 1712, Sieur Antoine Crozat was given control of the French colony of La Louisiane (Louisiana) by the French government, and was authorized at the same time to open a traffic in slaves with the coast of Guinea, West Africa, provided that slave labor was necessary for the development of the new country. He was also guaranteed a monopoly of the trade. Crozat failed to act, and nothing was done at the time. In August 1717, the management of the colony was transferred from Crozat to a commercial company called “Compagnie de l’Occident,” and the first slave trade took place on June 6, 1719, when a merchant ship arrived from Guinea with five hundred Africans on board. They were destined for Lower Louisiana, the region between New Orleans and Natchez. That same year, Philip Francis Renault left France with two hundred miners and workmen, to pursue the salt mining industry in Upper Louisiana, under the protection of the same organization. Renault stopped at San Domingo, and purchased five hundred slaves. On reaching the continent, he proceeded to the northern portion of Louisiana, then known as the “Illinois Country,” and established a settlement near Fort Chartres, at a place which he named St. Philip. Renault was not successful, and in 1744 he sold his slaves to the inhabitants of the district, and returned to France. Thus, slaveholding was introduced into the French settlements on the Upper Mississippi.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the French had established five settlements, including Kaskaskia, Kohokia (Cahokia), Fort Chartres, St. Philip, and Prairie du Rocher. M. Vivier, the French missionary to the Illinois Native Americans, described the region in June 1750:

“We have here whites, negroes, and Indians, to say nothing of cross-breeds. There are five French villages and three villages of the natives within a space of twenty-one leagues. In the five French villages, there are perhaps eleven hundred whites, three hundred blacks, and some sixty red slaves, or savages. The three Illinois towns do not contain more than eight hundred souls [natives] all told.”

Regions of Africa Where Slaves were Captured The slaves were governed by a “Major-Commandant,” residing at Fort Chartres, and was appointed by the Governor of New Orleans, however, settlers managed their plantations as they pleased. The slaves were regarded as “bien-foncier,” or real property, but at that time were treated with leniency and kindness. They were fed chiefly on maize (corn), and used as laborers and house-servants. On Sundays and “feast days,” they were allowed their liberties, and their children were taught the catechism (a summary of Christian teachings). There were very few large slave farms. The majority of the planters had a small number of slaves. A man was considered “well off,” if he owned three or four. The condition of the slaves in the southern district of Louisiana, of which New Orleans was the center, was wretched in the extreme. They were treated cruelly by indifferent masters, and were forced to live in unhealthy conditions.

After the French and Indian War (1754-1763)
After the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Great Britain gained control over Illinois Country. At the time, the population of Illinois Country was about three thousand people. Of these, about nine hundred were African slaves. General Thomas Gage, a British officer, gave the French the alternative of selling without restraint their estates, and removing with their personal property, or become English subjects. A large number decided to leave, and disposed of their lands and slaves. Of these slaves, some went to New Orleans, but the majority crossed the Mississippi River to St. Louis, St. Girardeau, and neighboring towns. The Jesuits [religious order of the Catholic Church] departed for New Orleans with forty-eight Africans, whom they sold, and then returned to France. This decrease in population aligned with a general prosperity of the region. When Captain Philip Pittman, a British officer, visited the area in 1770, he stated:

“M. Beauvais, owned 240 arpens [French measurement of land, equal to about 0.85 acres] of cultivated land and eight slaves; a captain of militia at St. Philip owned twenty slaves; and M. Balet, the richest man in Illinois, who resided at St. Genevieve, owned a hundred slaves, besides hired white people.”

The populations had decreased at the time to about sixteen hundred inhabitants, of whom six hundred were slaves. By the end of the century, migration from the East and South had begun, which considerably increasing the population. The English government laid no restrictions upon the holding of negroes as slaves by settlers of this region.

After the American Revolutionary War
From 1775 – 1783, the American Revolution was fought and won. George Rogers Clark [American George Rogers Clark surveyor, soldier, and officer] defeated the British at Kaskaskia, and secured the Illinois Country for Virginia. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris extended the U.S. boundary to include the Illinois Country, and in 1784, Virginia relinquished its claim to Illinois Country. In 1787, the Northwest Ordinance placed Illinois in the Northwest Territory, and in 1799, Reverend David Badgley and others explored the area later known as Madison County. They called it “Goshen,” because of the lush and fertile soil and vegetation. On July 4, 1800, the U.S. Congress created the Indiana Territory, which included the Illinois Country. In 1804, William Clark and his troops departed from Camp Dubois (at the mouth of the Wood River), to join Meriwether Lewis for their westward explorations.

When Virginia ceded her claim on the Northwest Territory, she stipulated that the French, Canadian, and other inhabitants of Kaskaskia and neighboring villages should be allowed to retain their possessions and to enjoy their ancient rights and liberties. These privileges were granted by Congress in 1787, but a clause prohibiting slavery in the district “Northwest of the Ohio River” was inserted in the same document. The residents of Illinois Country were considerably disturbed by the slave clause. Governor Arthur St. Clair [of the Northwest Territory] chose to interpret the clause as intended only to prevent the introduction of slaves, and not as aiming at the emancipation of those already there. The view of the governor was universally accepted, and slavery continued.

The Slave Codes
By 1803, it was necessary to provide some legal status for the numerous indentured blacks, and to regulate relations between masters and servants. The Governing Council of Indiana proceeded to draw up a slave code, with the chief material obtained from the codes of Virginia and Kentucky. These laws were re-enacted by the Indiana Territorial Assemblies of 1805 and 1807. Under this code:

All male negroes under the age of fifteen, either owned or acquired, must serve until the age of thirty-five.
Women served until the age of thirty-two.
Children born to the slaves during their period of service could also be bound out – the boys for thirty years, and the girls for twenty-eight.
Slaves brought into the Territory were obliged to serve the full term of their contracts.
Owners were required to register their servants with the County Clerk within thirty days after entering the Territory. Transfers from one master to another were permitted, provided the slave gave his or her consent. Other provisions included the duties of masters to servants.
Wholesome food and sufficient clothing and lodging were to be provided each slave. The outfit for a servant was to be: “A coat, waistcoat, a pair of breeches, one pair of shoes, two pair of stockings, a hat, and a blanket.” No provision was made for a future increase of wardrobe, and there was no penalty connected with a failure to provide as instructed.
On order from the Justice of the County, a servant was whipped for indifference or laziness, however, landowners were left unmolested in the management of their estates, and the question of the treatment of servants was seldom, if ever, raised. Those servants who refused to work or tried to runaway were forced to serve two days extra time for every idle or absent day.
Anyone harboring a runaway slaves had to pay the master one dollar for each day that he concealed the slave.
It was forbidden under severe penalty to trade or deal with a servant without the consent of his master.
Slaves were not allowed to serve in the State militia, to have bail when arrested, to engage in unlawful assembly, or to absent themselves from the plantation of their owner without a special pass or token.
If any slave refused to serve his master when brought into Illinois, the owner could move to any of the slave States with his property within sixty days. In the counties of Gallatin, St. Clair, Madison, and Randolph, there were over three hundred slaves registered in the decade following 1807. The number increased in the Territory from one hundred and thirty-five in 1800, to seven hundred and forty-nine in 1820.

These Slave Codes effectively barred slaves from gaining their freedom by permitting lengthy terms of “indentured servitude,” which bound workers to a particular person for a period of time in return for food and shelter.

Illinois Territory Created, March 1, 1809
Illinois Territorial Governor Ninian Edwards maintained in 1817 that the Ordinance of 1787 permitted “voluntary” servitude, meaning the indenturing of Africans for limited periods of service. He advocated reducing the term to one year. He advanced the belief that such contracts were “reasonable within themselves, beneficial to the slaves, and not repugnant to the public interests.” Some citizens believed that since the French had the right to retain their slaves, the other settlers of Illinois had the same right. Governor Ninian Edwards owned slaves: Rose, twenty-three years of age, was registered for thirty-five years; Antony, forty years old, for fifteen years; Maria, fifteen years of age, for forty-five years; and Jesse, twenty-five years of age, for thirty-five years of service. Joseph was registered at Kaskaskia on June 14, 1810, when he was eighteen months old, and had just been brought into the Territory with his mother.

Slave Trafficking
No attempt was made to conceal the traffic in slaves. The St. Louis Exchange and Land Office, owned by S. R. Wiggins, dealt largely in slaves, and not only advertised in the Illinois papers, but also had branch offices at Kaskaskia and Edwardsville. It was easy for the settlers of Southwestern Illinois to cross the Mississippi River to St. Charles or St. Louis to purchase slaves. In the first publication of the “Western Intelligencer,” rewards were offered for runaway slaves, and the practice of kidnapping had begun. Slaves whose terms of service were about to expire were seized and carried off to New Orleans or elsewhere in the South, and sold into a servitude more wretched than before. Slavery continued in existence in Southern Illinois as far north as Sangamon County.

Illinois Statehood, December 03, 1818
On December 03, 1818, the State of Illinois was admitted to the Union, with Kaskaskia being the capital, and Shadrach Bond the first Governor of Illinois. Some in the new State of Illinois would have liked to have had Illinois as a slave State, however, many citizens found it abhorrent to their Christian faith. A Constitutional Convention was to meet at Kaskaskia in August 1818. As early as April 1, articles discussing the advisability of making Illinois a slave State, and vice versa, began to appear in the “Western Intelligencer.” There were twenty-one delegates against the introduction of slavery, and twelve in favor of it.

ILLINOIS HISTORY
Source: Alton Telegraph, May 23, 1889
When Illinois was first admitted to Statehood in 1818, the question of slavery was foremost in the laying of the foundation of our State government. It was a long and bitter struggle by our forefathers, as to whether or not Illinois would be a slave State. The question was debated for eighteen months on the “stump,” at the crossroads, from the pulpit, in the newspapers (which were few and far between), and at the family fireside. Finally, a vote of the people was held on the first Monday in August 1824. The results of the vote is listed below by counties, as they existed at the time.

Alexander – 75 for; 51 against
Bond – 53 for; 240 against
Clark – 32 for; 113 against
Crawford – 134 for, 262 against
Edgar – 3 for; 234 against
Fayette – 125 for; 121 against
Franklin – 170 for; 113 against
Fulton – 5 for; 60 against
Gallatin – 596 for; 133 against
Greene – 134 for; 405 against
Hamilton – 173 for; 85 against
Jackson – 180 for; 93 against
Jefferson – 99 for; 43 against
Johnson – 74 for; 74 against
Lawrence – 158 for; 261 against
Madison – 351 for; 583 against
Montgomery – 74 for; 90 against
Monroe – 171 for; 196 against
Morgan – 43 for; 455 against
Pike – 23 for; 261 against
Pope – 278 for; 124 against
Randolph – 357 for; 184 against
Sangamon – 155 for; 722 against
St. Clair – 427 for; 543 against
Union – 213 for; 240 against
Washington – 112 for; 173 against
Wayne – 189 for; 111 against
White – 355 for; 326 against

The “Black Laws”
While slavery in the newly formed State of Illinois was outlawed by the State constitution, a compromise was made. In 1819, the State legislature passed what was known as the “Black Laws.”

Limited slavery would be allowed in the salt mines near Shawneetown. These contracts were limited to one year, but were renewable.
All contracts and indentures made before 1818 were to be enforced, and all slaves had to serve out the full term of years for which they had been bound under the Territorial laws. However, children of indentured servants were to be freed – males at twenty-one years of age, and females at eighteen years of age.
Current slave owners could retain their slaves.
If a black resident was unable to present proof of their freedom, they could be fined $50, or sold by the sheriff to the highest bidder.
The slave owners had to right of sale or transfer of a contract or indenture from one master to another.
Black people were forbidden to settle or reside in the State without a certificate of freedom.
It was unlawful to bring slaves into the State for the purpose of emancipating them.

1824 Contest for an Illinois Constitutional Convention
The question of the admission of Missouri into the Union was debated in Congress during the winter of 1818 to 1819. Many citizens in Illinois were outspoken in opposition to the formation of another slave State on their border. Missourians resented the efforts of some in Illinois to stop their admittance in the Union, which set in motion a scheme for the contest for a Convention in Illinois to re-introduce slavery into Illinois. It was decided to establish a pro-slavery newspaper at Edwardsville, to set the movement into operation. This movement failed, however, when Mr. Hooper Warren, editor of the Edwardsville Spectator and a staunch opponent of slavery, became aware of their plans. He exposed the whole plot in an editorial on July 11, 1820, emphasizing the fact that a determined effort to force a slave constitution upon the people of Illinois would be made within the next two or three years.

In 1822, the election in Illinois for a new Governor was to be held. The contest lay between Edward Coles, a strong anti-slavery man, and Joseph Phillips, who was Chief Justice of Illinois and pro-slavery in his sympathies. After an exciting contest, Mr. Coles was elected by a small plurality of forty-six votes. Daniel P. Cook was re-elected Representative over a pro-slavery opponent. On December 5, 1822, Coles made an urgent request for the repeal of the so-called “Black Laws,” but his attempts failed. On February 10, 1823, a resolution in the Senate calling for a constitutional convention was taken up and passed by a vote of twelve “yeas” to six “nays.” Mr. Thomas Lippincott, formerly of the town of Milton [near Upper Alton] in Madison County, and then the Secretary of the Senate, reported the passage of the resolution to the House the same day. It was up to the House representatives to stop the call for the convention in Illinois to re-introduce slavery. A vote was taken on February 11, 1823, which failed to pass by one vote. It was rumored Governor Coles had brought over to the anti-slavery side the vote of Mr. Hansen of Pike County. A move was made to reconsider, but was ruled out of order by the Speaker. That night, there was a public indignation meeting held in the State House, where speeches were made by lobby members. A crowd of men and boys burned Hansen in effigy, and marched about the streets of Vandalia beating drums, blowing horns, and shouting, “The Convention or Death.” The anti-conventionalists held a secret meeting on February 18, and appointed a committee to raise funds, and requested Rev. Thomas Lippincott to make sure that the Edwardsville Spectator would support their cause. On December 9, 1823, the State House at Vandalia was set on fire by a mob which paraded the streets shouting, “the State House or Death,” and burned Governor Coles in effigy amid mournful groans. The convention party was accused of the deeds. In the Spring of 1824, the Illinois Intelligencer, the chief organ of the Conventionalists [pro-slavery men], became financially embarrassed, and had to close its doors. Governor Coles purchased the newspaper, and placed it in the hands of Mr. Samuel D. Lockwood, editor. The anti-slavery partisans were jubilant. The Intelligencer was used by the Anti-conventionalists [anti-slavery men] to their great advantage. The Governor ordered the newspaper be sent regularly to all the old subscribers, no matter if they ordered it discontinued or refused to pay for it. In the end, the anti-slavery ideals won, and the call for a convention to discuss making Illinois a slave State failed. The votes were 4,972 votes for, and 6,640 against.

The result of the anti-conventionalists in Illinois was regarded as an anti-slavery victory. The population in the State increased rapidly through immigration. However, the courts sustained masters in their right to hold slaves, and the Legislature showed little interest to repeal the “Black Laws” of 1819. In 1827 and 1829, laws were passed forbidding black people to act as witnesses in the courts against any white person, and prohibited them from suing for their freedom.

The Slave Hunters
Even though laws were enacted against kidnapping a slave when his time of servitude was almost up, and sell him in the South, a system was set up by two or three men, where one would establish himself as a seller of slaves in St. Louis or at a border town. The other men would move about the Illinois counties on the lookout for either free or enslaved black people. When they could get away with it, the “slave hunters” seized their victims or enticed them to accompany them under false promises, placed them in wagons, and drove as quickly as possible to the borders of the State. They usually got away, but occasionally were overtaken and compelled to release their captives. Another method of capture was to take the black man to a spot on the Mississippi or Ohio River, where they were smuggled on board ships and forwarded to Memphis or New Orleans, where they were sold into slavery.

The Birth of the Underground Railroad
Those citizens in the State who were anti-slavery were happy to see a poor slave escape safely from bondage, and were quite willing to assist him when necessary. Out of this struggle between the slave hunters and the anti-slavery citizens grew the Underground Railroad, which aided those trying to escape to the North in safety. So bitter was the animosity felt by the pro-slavery inhabitants of southern Illinois toward the conductors of the railway, that the lives of well-known anti-slavery men were often threatened. Absolute secrecy as to the location of the Underground Railroad “stations” was necessary to facilitate the escape of the slaves, but also for the security of the lives and property of the Underground Railroad promoters. Many of the “conductors” of the Railroad were well-to-do farmers, honest tradesfolk, and prominent citizens in the towns, who were threatened by a penalty of five hundred dollars for the crime of harboring or secreting a slave. The conductors, however, did not hesitate to give shelter and aid to their journey north. Very few slaves, once they were safely on board the “Railroad,” were ever retaken. The starting-points of three of the Underground Railways were Chester, Alton, and Quincy, Illinois. From Alton, the slaves were aided northeastward through Jacksonville until the Illinois River was reached, and then along its banks to the vicinity of LaSalle and Ottawa. Usually, the objective was to reach Canada. Those who reached northern Illinois were smuggled on board ships at Chicago, and forwarded to English soil in Canada.

The Effect of the Murder of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy
Following the death of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy in November 1837 at the hands of a pro-slavery mob, the hearts and efforts of anti-slavery men were either frightened or forced into silence. For a time, they proceeded with great caution. Following his death, Lovejoy’s newspaper, The Observer, continued for a short time in Cincinnati, Ohio, with Elisha W. Chester as editor. A lack of funds caused its suspension in April 1838. However, a leading feature of the anti-slavery movement in Illinois was the prominence of clergymen who took up the mantle. Foremost among them were Owen Lovejoy (Rev. Elijah Lovejoy’s brother), John Cross, W. T. Allen, Chauncey Cook, James H. Dickey, Rev. Thaddeus B. Hurlbut, and Rev. Hubbell Loomis.

The Anti-Slavery Convention in Upper Alton, Illinois – 1837
In the Fall of 1837, a convention “favorable to immediate emancipation of slaves” was called to meet at the Presbyterian Church in Upper Alton, at the northwest corner of College Avenue and Clawson Street. There were nearly 260 brave men from different parts of Illinois who attended. Twenty-three of these were from Alton, and Major Charles W. Hunter (Alton developer and business man) was first on the list. Their proceedings were broken up the first day by a pro-slavery mob. A trustee from the church sent a note, requesting them not to reassemble there, in fear that the church would be destroyed. The next day, the convention met in the home of Rev. Thaddeus B. Hurlbut in Upper Alton (this rock home still stands today, at the southeast corner of College Avenue and Clawson Street). The mob from the previous day went there, armed with bowie knives, sword canes, and pistols. Illinois State’s Attorney Usher Ferguson Linder (1809-1876) led the mob, which filled the yard, pounding on the door and pressing their faces against the windowpanes. Rev. Hurlbut told them they couldn’t come in, unless they broke in. Linder replied, “We will break your damned head.” “Very well, said Rev. Hurlbut, “you can do so if you choose, but you cannot come in.” The mob continued threatening, while those within continued their business. The mob decided to meet at a nearby schoolhouse to debate what their next action would be. Someone (not identified) spoke out from the crowd, saying “There are sixty armed men in the house!” This seemed to dampen their enthusiasm. The next day the owner of the house requested Rev. Hurlbut to meet elsewhere, so he fitted up a log cabin that stood on his own property, and the convention continued to meet there.

Colonel Charles W. Hunter and the Liberty Party
Colonel Charles W. Hunter (he was often referred to as Major) was a prominent Alton land owner and business man. He was a firm anti-slavery man, and was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and attended the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1837 in Upper Alton. In 1844, Colonel Hunter was nominated as the Liberty Party’s candidate for Governor of Illinois. The Liberty Party was firmly anti-slavery, and its members were drawn from the Whig ranks. Unfortunately, Hunter lost the nomination, and the Democrat won the governorship of Illinois.

In the Courts
In 1843, a case was brought before Judge Shields and jury. In Jarrot vs. Jarrot, a French slave named Joseph Jarrot, alias Peter, who claimed to be free, and sued his mistress, Julia Jarrot of Cahokia, for pay for his past services. Joseph’s mother, Pelagie, was purchased at four years of age, together with her mother, Angelique, by Nicholas Jarrot of Cahokia, from one Le Brun, in 1798. Angelique, the grandmother of Joseph, had been owned and held as a slave by the father-in-law of Le Brunn, one Joseph Trotier, before the United States took possession of the Illinois Country. Joseph Jarrot, who was a descendant of a typical French slave, was bequeathed in the will of Nicholas Jarrot, dated February 6, 1818, to Julia Jarrot, the appellee. The case was first tried in the Circuit Court of St. Clair County, when it was decided that a slave could not sue his master for wages. The Supreme Court, however, reversed this in 1844, declaring that “a colored person may maintain an action of assumpsit for services rendered, and in such action his right to freedom may be tried.” The Supreme Court decided that “the descendants of the slaves of the old French settlers, born since the Ordinance of 1787, and before or since the adoption of the Constitution of Illinois, cannot be held in slavery in this State. The effect of this decision was fortunate for the slave. It gave him the right to sue for his freedom in the courts, and rendered the holding of any negro indentured servants within the State illegal. In 1854, the Illinois Legislature wiped out from Statute books the infamous “Black Laws.” They had been legally in force in the State for forty-six years. Following the Illinois Supreme Court decisions of 1843 and 1845, there were three classes of negroes: indentured servants (those serving out a limited period of time); French slaves (a few negroes bound to perpetual servitude); and the free black people. Although the poor black citizens were free, Illinois residence was not without its drawbacks. Public office was closed to them, as well as (for the most part) schools and colleges. There were few trades or lines of employment that were easy to secure work in. Intermarriage between the black people and white people was forbidden under severe penalty. When in 1825 the Illinois Legislature decreed that a common school should be established in each county, it was open to every class of white citizens between the ages of five and twenty-one. From that time until 1872, the public schools were for white children only. There were exceptions, however. The public schools in Alton accepted every child of suitable age to school. However, in 1897, Alton officials erected and opened two schools specifically for black students, which was taught by black teachers.

State Convention of Colored Citizens of Illinois
To Repeal the “Black Laws” of Illinois
Held in Alton, November 13 – 15, 1856

A convention of African-American men of the State of Illinois, called for by the Central Committee in Chicago, was held in the “Colored Baptist Church” of Alton, November 13 – 15, 1856, to exercise their Constitutional right that was guaranteed to all people, to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. There were laws in the State they considered disgraceful, and should be erased and blotted out from history’s memory. The laws referred to were:

1. Taxation without the right to vote.
2. Denied the right to testify against a white man before a court of justice.
3. Taxed for school, without the privilege of sending their children to public schools.

Members of the convention of Madison County were: C. C. Richardson, J. Kelley, Louis Overton, E. White, E. Wilkerson, H. Douglass King, Rev. R. J. Robinson, and J. H. Johnson.

It was determined at the convention to form the “Illinois State Repeal Association,” with appointed officers for a president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary, corresponding secretary, and an executive committee of nine. The object of the association was to obtain all the rights and immunities of citizenship. Anyone could become a member by paying an initiation fee of twenty-five cents. Meetings were to be held on the second Thursday of each month. All meetings were opened with prayer, and previous minutes read. The following officers were elected: President – John Jones of Cook County; Vice-President – Dr. M. Cary of Cook County; Secretary – B. L. Ford of Cook County; Corresponding Secretary – John A. Crisup of Cook County; Treasurer – William Jackson; and Executive Committee – R. H. Rollins, Chicago, H. D. King, Alton; Thomas Mason, Peoria; Louis Isbel, Chicago; Henry Bradford, Chicago; J. H. Barquet, Chicago; William Johnson, Chicago; William Barton, Macoupin; and B. Henderson, Jacksonville.

On the evening of November 15, A very large assemblage of both colored and whites convened at Liberty Hall in Alton, to hear speeches. Mr. Jones stated, “I am no public speaker; I am unsuited to the platform. I am unsuited to the platform. If there is a place for so humble an individual as myself in this anti-slavery movement, it is the executive department. But I have had no choice in the present arrangement; if so, I had not been here tonight; at least in this position. The scene before me calls up old and familiar reminiscences. I am no stranger here in Alton. I love it, because it was here I first breathed free air and stood up a man, beyond the reach of the inhuman code of slavery.”

Mr. William Johnson addressed the audience, then Mr. H. Ford Douglass was introduced. He gave a lengthy, eloquent speech, part of which is: “Judge Kane decided that a slaveholder had the same right to carry his slave with him into a Free State, that he had to take his carpetbag. The doctrine that Slavery goes wherever the Constitution goes is now openly maintained by Toombs and others in the South, and dough-faces innumerable in the North. This is the only consistent course for the man who admits the constitutional right of the slaveholder to make merchandise of men. If it permit slavery to exist in Missouri – the right of one man to enslave another; if it sanctions that infernal doctrine that had its birth amidst the darkest conceptions of atheism – that one man can own the blood, bones, and muscles of his fellow-man; traffic in the blood-bought image of Christ; shut out from their immortal souls the light of God’s glorious sun, then indeed is it a national institution, having rights in common with any other institution in the country, that the Constitution recognizes, to go wherever it goes. But sir, I do not assent to the doctrine. This is not a great slave empire – a barbarian people – third-rate civilization. To borrow the undying inspirations of another, like the Roman who looked back upon the glory of his ancestors, in great woe exclaiming, ‘Great Scipio’s ghost complains that we are slow, And Pompey’s shade walks unrevenged among us.’ ….. Let us profit from the teachings of history, until each one of us shall fully realize the truth of which Lord Bacon taught that ‘Knowledge is Power.’”

The State Repeal Association was formed with the following preamble: “Whereas, We the people of color of the State of Illinois, are cursed by the blighting influence of oppression, as displayed in the inequality of its laws, in depriving us of the rights of oath and franchise. And whereas, we believe these laws to be morally wrong and impolitic. Therefore, we deem it our duty to organize associations to employ all lawful and honorable means for the repeal of the Black Laws of the State, and for the final accession of our political rights.”
*******

The proceedings of the 1856 State Convention of Colored Citizens.

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
The campaign of 1856 in Illinois proved to be the welding of all the anti-slavery elements firmly into one organization, which in time became the State Republican Party. Men with undoubted anti-slavery principles, such as Abraham Lincoln, were chosen as its leaders. During the Civil War, on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, freeing more than three million slaves in the Confederate States, as of January 1, 1863. The bold move recast the Civil War as a struggle against slavery. Lincoln stated, “I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper.” The proclamation applied only to the States that had seceded from the Union, leaving the slavery of 500,000 African-Americans in the loyal border States unaffected. It also exempted those parts of the Confederacy under Northern control.

The Emancipation Proclamation provided for the recruitment of African-American military units among Union troops. Tens of thousands of ex-slaves volunteered for the armed forces. About 180,000 African-Americans served in the U.S. Army, and 18,000 more in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered in November 1863, referred to the proclamation and abolition of slavery as a goal of the war with the words “a new birth of freedom.”

It was the Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1864, that outlawed slavery throughout the United States. However, it did not confer rights of citizenship. Full citizenship was granted to all African Americans in 1868 with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, but it would be almost another 100 years before African Americans were accorded full protection under the law, and discrimination outlawed.

Modern Civil Rights for African-Americans
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, requested by President John Kennedy and pushed on by President Johnson, prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and was the nation’s benchmark civil rights legislation. Civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., stated that the Civil Rights Act was nothing less than a “second emancipation.” The act was later expanded to bring disabled Americans, the elderly, and collegiate athletics under its umbrella. It also paved the way for two major follow-up laws: the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited literacy tests and other discriminatory voting practices, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which banned discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of property.

********