they had foreseen that a determined effort would be
made by the friends of slavery to legalize that institution in the
Territory. Almost at once, in fact, the conflict commenced, which was
to continue actively for thirty-seven years. Like the Nation itself,
the Illinois country was to be for a large part of its history "half
slave and half free"--both in sentiment and in practice.

Two attempts against the integrity of the "Sixth Article" were made
during Gov. St. Clair's administration. The trouble began with the
appeals of the French slave-holders against the loss of their
slaves.[10] As civil administration under the Territorial government
was not established among the Illinois settlements until 1790, both
the old French inhabitants and the new American colonists suffered all
manner of disabilities and distresses in the interval between 1784 and
1790, while just across the Mississippi there was a settled and
prosperous community under the Spanish government of Louisiana. When,
therefore, the French masters appealed to Gen. St. Clair, in 1787, to
protect them against the loss of the principal part of their wealth,
represented by their slaves, he had to face the alternative of the
loss of these substantial citizens by migration with their slaves to
the Spanish side of the river. And, in order to pacify these
petitioners, St. Clair gave it as his opinion that the prohibition of
slavery in the Ordinance was not retroactive, and hence did not affect
the rights of the French masters in their previously acquired slave
property. As this view accorded with the "compact" contained in the
Virginia deed of cession, it was sanctioned by the old Congress, and
was later upheld by the new Federal Government; and this construction
of the Ordinance of 1787 continued to prevail in Illinois until 1845,
when the State Supreme Court decreed that the prohibition was
absolute, and that, consequently, slavery in any form had never had
any legal sanction in Illinois since 1787.[11]

It does not appear that Mr. Lemen took any active measures against
this construction of the anti-slavery ordinance at the time. He was,
indeed, himself a petitioner, with other American settlers on the
"Congress lands" in Illinois, for the recognition of their claims,
which were menaced {p.13} by the general prohibition of settlement
then in effect.[12] Conditions in every respect were so insecure prior
to the organization of St. Clair county in 1790, that it was