onor of the State, and succeeded at length in
procuring an overwhelming vote against the threatened disgrace.

Laws against duelling are laughed at in other States, but Illinois made
hers in earnest, affixing the penalty of death to the deliberate killing
of a man, even under the so-called code of honor. This severe law did
not suffice to prevent a fatal duel, the actors of which probably
expected to elude the penalty with the usual facility. The State,
however, in all simplicity, hung the survivor, and from that day to this
has had no further occasion for such severity.

Of late, the same Personage who has in all ages been disposed to buy
men's souls at his own delusive price, and to make his dupes sign the
infernal contract with their blood, has been very busy in certain parts
of the State, trying to get signatures, under the miserable pretence
that party pays better than patriotism, and that times of whirlwind and
disaster are those in which he, the contractor, has most power to
advance the interests of his adherents. But some of those who listened
most greedily to the glozings of the arch deceiver begin already to
repent, and are ready to call upon higher powers to interfere and efface
the record of their momentary weakness. In all _diablerie_ the _fiat_ of
a superior can release a victim, so we may hope that godlike patriotism
may not only forgive the penitent, but absolve him from the consequences
of his own rash folly. To have been instrumental in dimming for one
moment the glorious escutcheon of Illinois, requires pardon. To such
words as have been spoken by some of her sons we may apply the poet's
sentence:

'To speak them were a deadly sin!
And for having but thought them thy heart within
A treble penance must be done.'

The recent Message of Governor Yates is full of spirit, the right
spirit, a warm and generous, a courageous and patriotic one. He glories
in the great things he has to tell, but it is not 'as the fool
boasteth,' but rather as the apostle, who, when he recounts only plain
and manifest truths, says, 'Bear with me.' And truly, what wonders have
been achieved by the 'men of men'! Since the war began, Illinois, though
she has given one hundred and thirty-five thousand of her able-bodied
men to the field, and though the closing of the Mississippi has produced
incalculable loss, has sent away food enough to supply ten millions of
people, and she has now remaining, of last year's produce, as