into the Union, politicians and settlers from the South made a
determined effort to change her to a slave State. The legislature of
1822-23, with a two-thirds pro-slavery majority of the State Senate, and
a technical, but legally questionable, two-thirds majority in the House,
submitted to popular vote an act calling a State convention to change
the constitution. It happened, fortunately, that Governor Coles, though
a Virginian, was strongly antislavery, and gave the weight of his
official influence and his whole four years' salary to counteract the
dangerous scheme. From the fact that southern Illinois up to that time
was mostly peopled from the slave States, the result was seriously in
doubt through an active and exciting campaign, and the convention was
finally defeated by a majority of eighteen hundred in a total vote of
eleven thousand six hundred and twelve. While this result effectually
decided that Illinois would remain a free State, the propagandism and
reorganization left a deep and tenacious undercurrent of pro-slavery
opinion that for many years manifested itself in vehement and intolerant
outcries against "abolitionism," which on one occasion caused the murder
of Elijah P. Lovejoy for persisting in his right to print an antislavery
newspaper at Alton.

Nearly a year before this tragedy the Illinois legislature had under
consideration certain resolutions from the Eastern States on the subject
of slavery, and the committee to which they had been referred reported a
set of resolves "highly disapproving abolition societies," holding that
"the right of property in slaves is secured to the slaveholding States
by the Federal Constitution," together with other phraseology calculated
on the whole to soothe and comfort pro-slavery sentiment. After much
irritating discussion, the committee's resolutions were finally passed,
with but Lincoln and five others voting in the negative. No record
remains whether or not Lincoln joined in the debate; but, to leave no
doubt upon his exact position and feeling, he and his colleague, Dan
Stone, caused the following protest to be formally entered on the
journals of the House:

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both
branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned
hereby protest against the passage of the same."

"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgati