fer to make him
governor. "But I denounced the conspiracy as high treason," he says,
"and gave him a few hours to leave the Territory on pain of
arrest."[19] It should be noted that at this date he was not himself a
magistrate, which, perhaps, accounts for his apparent leniency towards
what he regarded as a treasonable proposal.

The year 1809, the date of the separation of Illinois from the Indiana
Territory, marks a crisis in the Lemen anti-slavery campaign in
Illinois.[20] The agitation under the Indiana government for the
further recognition of slavery in the Territory was mainly instigated
by the Illinois slave-holders and their sympathizers among the
American settlers from the slave states. The people of Indiana proper,
except those of the old French inhabitants of Vincennes, who were
possessed of slaves, were either indifferent or hostile towards
slavery. Its partisans in the Illinois counties of the Territory, in
the hope of promoting their object thereby, now sought division of the
Indiana Territory and the erection of a separate government for
Illinois at Kaskaskia. This movement aroused a bitter political
struggle in the Illinois settlements, one result of which was the
murder of young Rice Jones in the streets of Kaskaskia. The division
was advocated on the ground of convenience and opposed on the score of
expense. The divisionists, however, seem to have been animated mainly
by the desire to secure the introduction of slavery as soon as
statehood could be attained for their section. The division was
achieved in 1809, and with it the prompt adoption of the system of
indentured service already in vogue under the Indiana government. And
from that time forth the fight was on between the free-state and
slave-state parties in the new Territory. Throughout the independent
territorial history of Illinois, slavery was sanctioned partly by law
and still further by custom. Gov. Ninian Edwards, whose religious
affiliations were with the Baptists, not only sanctioned slavery, but,
as is well known, was himself the owner of slaves during the
territorial period.

It was in view of this evident determination to make of Illinois
Territory a slave state, that James Lemen, with Jefferson's approval,
took the radical step of organizing a {p.17} distinctively
anti-slavery church as a means of promoting the free-state cause.[21]
From the first, indeed, he had sought to promote the cause of
temperance and of anti-slavery in and