any of the
distinguished leaders came from Virginia, and it is worthy of note that
in 1820 the two United States Senators of Illinois were of Maryland
ancestry, while her Representative was of Kentucky origin. The swarms of
land-seekers between 1820 and 1830 ascended the Illinois river, and
spread out between that river and the Mississippi. It was in this period
that Abraham Lincoln's father, who had come from Kentucky to Indiana,
again left his log cabin and traveled by ox-team with his family to the
popular Illinois county of Sangamon. Here Lincoln split his famous rails
to fence their land, and grew up under the influences of this migration
of the Southern pioneers to the prairies. They were not predominantly of
the planter class; but the fierce contest in 1824 over the proposition
to open Illinois to slavery was won for freedom by a narrow majority.

Looking at the three States, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, prior to 1850,
we perceive how important was the voice of the South here, and we can
the more easily understand the early affiliation of the Northwest with
her sister States to the south on the Western waters. It was not
without reason that the proposal of the Missouri Compromise came from
Illinois, and it was a natural enthusiasm with which these States
followed Henry Clay in the war policy of 1812. The combination of the
South, the western portion of the Middle States, and the Mississippi
Valley gave the ascendancy to the democratic ideals of the followers of
Jefferson, and left New England a weakened and isolated section for
nearly half a century. Many of the most characteristic elements in
American life in the first part of the century were due to this
relationship between the South and the trans-Alleghany region. But even
thus early the Northwest had revealed strong predilections for the
Northern economic ideals as against the peculiar institution of the
South, and this tendency grew with the increase of New England
immigration.

The northern two in this sisterhood of Northwestern States were the
first to be entered by the French, but latest by the English settlers.
Why Michigan was not occupied by New York men at an earlier period is at
first sight not easy to understand. Perhaps the adverse reports of
surveyors who visited the interior of the State, the partial
geographical isolation, and the unprogressive character of the French
settlers account for the tardy occupation of the area. Certain it is
that w