ntained their uncompromising but discriminating
opposition to slavery so long as slavery remained a local issue; after
which time they were gradually absorbed into the general body of
ordinary Baptist churches.

During the period of the Illinois Territory, 1809 to 1818, Elder Lemen
kept up a most energetic campaign of opposition to slavery, by
preaching and rigorous church discipline in the application of the
rules against slavery. He himself was regularly ordained soon after
the organization of his anti-slavery church. His sons, James and
Joseph, and his brother-in-law, Benjamin Ogle, were equally active in
the ministry during this period, and, before its close, they had two
churches firmly established in Illinois, with others of the same order
in Missouri.

"The church, properly speaking, never entered politics," Dr. Peck
informs us, "but presently, when it became strong, the members all
formed what they called the 'Illinois Anti-Slavery League,' and it was
this body that conducted the anti-slavery contest."[23] The contest
culminated in the campaign for statehood in 1818.

At the beginning of that year the Territorial Legislature petitioned
Congress for an Enabling Act, which was presented by the Illinois
Delegate, Hon. Nathaniel Pope. As chairman of the committee to which
this petition was referred, he drew up a bill for such an act early in
the year. In the course of its progress through the House, he
presented an amendment to his own bill, which provided for the
extension of the northern boundary of the new state. According to the
provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, the line would have been drawn
through the southern border of Lake Michigan. Pope's amendment
proposed to extend it so as to include some sixty miles of frontage on
Lake Michigan, thereby adding fourteen counties, naturally tributary
to the lake region, to counterbalance the southern portion of the
State, which was connected by the river system with the southern slave
states. Gov. Thomas Ford states explicitly that Pope made this change
"upon his own responsibility, ... no one at that time having suggested
or requested it." This statement is directly contradicted in {p.20}
Dr. Peck's sketch of James Lemen, Sr., written in 1857. He therein
states that this extension was first suggested by Judge Lemen, who had
a government surveyor make a plat of the proposed extension, with the
advantages to the anti-slavery cause to be gained thereby noted on the