.

"In testimony whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and affixed
our seals, this twelfth day of October, _Anno Domini_, eighteen
hundred and twenty.

"(Signed by twelve men.)

"Acknowledged and subscribed in the presence of
"C---- T. H----n,
"J---- P. D----n,"

and five others, who seem to have been a portion of "the
fellow-citizens of this settlement," referred to in the document.]

FOOTNOTES:

[77] See note at the close of this article.

[78] The "Sangamon country," as the phrase was then used, included all
the region watered by the river of that name, together with the counties
of Cass, Morgan, and Scott, as far south as Apple creek.

VI.

THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.

"I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong."--

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

The reign of violence, when an evil at all, is an evil which remedies
itself: the severity of its proceeding hastens the accomplishment of its
end, as the hottest fire soonest consumes its fuel. A nation will
endure oppression more patiently immediately after a spasmodic rebellion
or a bloody revolution, than at any other time; and a community requires
less law to govern it, after a violent and illegal assertion of the
law's supremacy, than was necessary before the outbreak. After having
thrown off the yoke of a knave--and perhaps hung the knave up by the
neck, or chopped his head off with an axe--mankind not unfrequently fall
under the control of a fool; frightened at their temerity in dethroning
an idol of metal, they bow down before a paltry statue of wood.

Men are not easily satiated with power, but when it is irregular, a
pause in its exercise must eventually come. And there is a principle of
human nature, which teaches, that whatsoever partakes of the mob-spirit
is, at best, but temporary, and ought to have a speedy end. This is
especially true of such men as first permanently peopled the western
country; for though they sometimes committed high-handed and
unjustifiable acts, the moment it was discovered that they had
accomplished the purposes of order, they allowed the means of
vindication to fall into disuse. The regulator system, for example, was
directed to the stern and thorough punishment of evil men, but no sooner
was society freed from their depredatio