districts would languish without its aid-Spain, therefore, consented that a temporary arrangement should be made by the local government at New-Orleans, for leaving the commerce of the Mississippi unfettered, without compromising the right of renewing her pretensions, or of suffering them to lie dormant, as she thought proper. We ought, perhaps, in justice to those implicated in the "Spanish conspiracy"-some of whom were entirely ruined, by being thus implicated-here to remark, that no evidence exists of any attempt having been made by them, or any of them, to sever the Union. The purchase of Louisiana, in 1801, by the United States, of France, to whom it had been ceded by Spain, put an end to all cavil immediately; and the prosperity of the West was, thenceforward, placed beyond the reach of any and every contingency. In 1806, however, a new and unexpected difficulty arose; and as it terminated at Fort Massac, within the limits of this State, it may, perhaps, without impropriety, be regarded as a legitimate portion of our history. I allude now to the conspiracy of Colonel Burr, which, at the time of its occurrence, created a sensation throughout the country, seldom, perhaps never, surpassed. Colonel Burr was the son of a gentleman, alike eminent for his learning and piety-the president of an ancient and respectable college in New-Jersey, and was himself a man of talents. He was distinguished alike for the boldness of his plans, and the rapidity and energy of his thoughts; the elegance of his address, the suavity of his manners, and the fervor and beauty of his eloquence. On the return of peace, he established himself as a lawyer in the city of New-York, and rose rapidly in his profession; became attorney-general of the State, a senator in Congress, and with one more vote, in 1801, would have been elected president of the United States. As it was, he was elected vice-president at the time of Mr. Jefferson's election to the presidency. His conduct during the presidential canvass impaired his popularity, and the want of confidence in his integrity left him, at the end of four years, with but few friends, and those in the main reckless and designing partisans. He returned to New-York in 1805, and became a candidate for governor. General Hamilton was at that time in the zenith of his fame; the rival of Colonel Burr, not as a candidate for office, but in business and reputation. He was the friend, too, of Washington, who held Colonel Burr in but little esteem. General Hamilton, having no confidence in the integrity of Colonel Burr, gave vent to his opinions; and refusing to retract them, was challenged by the latter to fight a duel. He accepted the challenge and fell. The laurels, however, of the hero, watered by the tears of his country, retained their verdure; and even those who, from political considerations, rejoiced in his fall, execrated, in deep and solemn tones, his savage murderer. Burr, soon after this bloody catastrophe, resigned his former employ. ments, forsook his accustomed haunts, and led an erratic and mysterious life. He performed long and rapid journeys; travelled sometimes in disguise, and remained for a short time only at any one place. The western country became his favorite theatre; the Ohio river the termination of his wanderings; and those possessed of military experi ence, or of hearts alive to the stirring impulse of ambition, his favorite companions. His movements in a short time excited suspicion. The assembling of men, and the collecting of warlike stores, in strange and unusual places, roused the Government of the United States to action, and Burr was arrested. His adherents immediately dispersed; and their chief, who had triumphed alike in the field of politics and war, though put upon his trial for treason and acquitted, became, as it were, a vagrant in the land; an obscure citizen of that country, over whose councils he had presided. 'Tis needless to trace the progress of Burr down the Ohio. Suffice it, then, to remark, that a few men were collected upon Blannerhasset's island; that a quantity of arms, warlike instruments, and farming utensils, were there most strangely intermingled; and that a detachment of men, or of troops, for the ostensible purpose of improving land upon the Washita, (of which Colonel Burr had become the proprietor,) descended the Ohio. Fort Massac was then a military post, and was garrisoned by a small detachment of United States troops. Boats descending the river were stopped, and underwent a rigid examination. In this manner his expedition was broken up, and those who had shared in his intrigues shared also in his ruin. The fate of no man was more deplored, than that of Mr. Blannerhasset and his family. He was an Irish gentleman of fortune-devoted to science, and fond of retirement. He had selected a small island in the Ohio river as his retreat, and spared no expense in its improvement; "and to crown the enchantment of the scene," says Mr. Wirt, in his speech upon the trial of Colonel Burr, "a wife, lovely beyond her sex, had blessed him with her love, and made him the father of her children. But the enchanter came-the crucible was laid aside; music was dis robed of all its charms, and the lovely mistress of this fairy scene—the Calypso of this enchanted Isle, was seen at midnight, shivering on the banks of the Ohio, mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell; eluding, by stratagems, the ministers of justice; destitute of the comforts she had shared with so many, and a stranger to those luxuries she had diffused with so liberal a hand." The ostensible The object of Burr is shrouded still in mystery. end and aim we have mentioned-the improvement of the Washita lands. That such, however, was its real objeot, no one can pretend. The conquest of Mexico-the seizure of New-Orleans-the severance of the Union-and the formation of a western empire-have all been enumerated, and each with plausibility, as the final object of a scheme, fraught with treason, madness and folly. The lesson, however, thus taught, will long be remembered. An officer, high in the army-once high in the confidence of his coun try; a man of talents-of an address and manner highly prepossessing, embarks in an expedition hostile to the peace and welfare of his country. He advances a thousand miles on his journey-is arrested in his career by little more than a corporal's guard, and taken from thence by an officer with one or two attendants, another thousand miles to court-is tried and acquitted, because no act of treason was proved to have been committed by him in the district, selected by the public prosecutor for his trial-is arraigned a second time at the bar "of public opinion," consigned to disgrace, and rendered infamous-and still, we are told by foreigners, there is no energy in republican institutions. The fact, however, is otherwise. A republican government is the strongest on earth; and the ballot-box the most powerful instrument in existence. It is "A weapon that comes down as still, As snow-flakes fall upon the sod; As lightning does the will of God." 66 Under a despotic government, everything is smooth and quiet upon the surface. It is, however, a sea of black and bitter waters, whose angry billows once excited, "cast up mire and dirt." In a republic it is otherwise. Its free and independent citizens, live, and move, and have their being" upon a stream, (if not for ever pure,) for ever rolling; and though its mighty flood may sometimes rise a little higher, and flow a little faster than could be wished-and although its foaming torrent, as it dashes along, may now and then throw up its fleecy cloud, it rises only to disappear; and as it fades away before the sunbeams of intelligence, "the signal bow of promise" spans the arch of our political horizon, and publishes to every land the solemn, the important, and now indisputable fact, that there is no danger. Among the incidents which occurred when Illinois was yet a territory, the introduction of steamboats upon the Mississippi and its branches, stands out in bold relief. In 1812, the steamboat New Orleans, with a cargo of between three and four hundred tons, descended the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from Pittsburgh to New-Orleans, in two hundred and fifty-nine hours. The ordinary passage of a flat-bottomed, or keel-boat from the same place, was, at that time, about seventy-five days; and from New-Orleans to Pittsburgh considerably more. The contrast was so great, and the advantages of steam navigation, more especially in ascending the stream, so striking, that a new era was at once produced. The first experiment having been successful, others followed of course, till several hundred boats, vieing in magnificence with the finest specimens of naval architecture in this country and Europe, covered its surface. The introduction of similar boats into Lake Michigan, the Upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and Illinois rivers, soon completed their triumph, and the old flat-bottomed boats, keel-boats, and barges of the Mississippi, were shortly enumerated among things that were. It being the historian's province to speak of things that formerly existed, as well as of things that now exist; and there being something, even at this day, on which the imagination delights to linger, in "All the way to Shawneetown long time ago,* we should err exceedingly in taste, as well as in judgment, were we to allow the old Mississippi flat-bottomed boats, keel-boats, and barges, to pass unheeded by. Although we do not believe that mankind will go to war again in triremes, or biremes,† as of old, still there is something in Virgil's and in Homer's battles, which surpass in interest Trafalgar or the Nile-and although a modern revenue-cutter would, in all probability, have annihilated the navies of Greece and Rome, the fleets of Anthony and Cæsar, they were all great in "their day and generation." It was just so with the boats of the Mississippi, and the hardy race of men, who by main strength propelled "vessels of enormous bulk" up and down its stream. The latter are principally extinct. Their familiarity, however, with danger their dexterity among "the chutes-the races-the snaggs-the chains the sawyers and planters-points of islands-wreck-heaps and cypress-bends" of this mighty river-their perseverance amid perilstheir hardihood, and sometimes their liberality, demand our applause. The larger class of barges required some thirty or forty men to manage them, and sailed frequently in company. Their arrival, as we are told, at one time, was the sure forerunner of a riot; lawless and dissolute, and sometimes more numerous than the whole population where they happened to land, they indulged themselves in great excesses, and sometimes without restraint. The citizens were compelled to arm in their own defence; and the victory, more frequently than otherwise, was in favor of the party "most prodigal of life and careless of consequences." An increase of population along the river was gradually improving this state of things, and working a reformation, when the introduction of steamboats produced a revolution. The number of men required for navigation being lessened, (a steamboat carrying ten times the burden, and performing the voyage in a fifth part of the time,) the boatmen's character became more elevated; and discipline being introduced among them, the Mississippi steamboats were hailed by every class of citizens along the river, with exceeding joy; and their arrival, like their predecessors, (the Mississippi barges,) no longer occasioned a declaration of war. The termination of hostilities with England and the savages, in 1815; the introduction of steamboats upon our lakes and rivers; the extent and fertility of our soil, and salubrity of its climate, in the years 1815, 1816, 1817 and 1818, brought many emigrants hither, mostly from Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina, who settled principally in the southern part of the (then) Territory of Illinois. In consequence of this accession, Con *The chorus of a favorite boat-song. + Triremes and biremes were the names of two classes of vessels among the Greeks and Romans. The former had three, and the latter, two benches of rowers. The skill of the rowers determined generally the fate of the battle. gress, on the 18th of April, 1818, passed a law to enable the people of the Illinois territory, to form a Constitution and State government. The preliminary steps for that purpose having been taken, a convention met at Kaskaskia, and on the 26th of August, 1818, adopted our present State Constitution. By the act of Congress, approved April 18th, 1818, entitled "An act to enable the people of the Illinois Territory to frame a Constitution and State government, and for the admission of said State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes," the boundaries of said State were fixed as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of the Wabash river; thence up the same, and with the line of Indiana to the northwest corner of said State; thence east with the line of same State to the middle of Lake Michigan; thence north along the middle of said lake to north latitude 42° 30'; thence west to the middle of the Mississippi river; thence down along the middle of that river to its confluence with the Ohio river; and thence up the latter river, along its northwestern shore to the place of beginning." The above boundaries were recognized by the convention which met at Kaskaskia to frame the Constitution, and have since been regarded by the Legislature of Illinois as final and conclusive. (See note 3.) Within the above boundaries, there are thirty-five millions nine hundred and forty-one thousand six hundred and two acres, or fifty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-eight square miles. The State of Illinois, it will therefore be seen, is larger than New-York, Ohio, or Pennsylvania. It contains more arable land than all New-England; and more than England and Wales together. It is larger than Denmark and Portugal; and has more square miles than Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, united. The Constitution of Illinois, differs but little from the constitution of the other, and neighboring States. The governor is elected for four years, and ineligible for the next succeeding term. He must be thirty years of age, and have been a citizen of the United States for thirty years, and resident of the State for two years preceding his election. A lieutenant governor is elected for the same time, and must possess the same qualifications. The last clause in the Constitution, however, was afterward modified, and "any person thirty years of age, who was a citizen of the United States, and had resided within the limits of Illinois for two years preceding the election, was rendered eligible to the office of lieutenant-governor." Senators One of the preliminary steps was the taking of the census. Although done by legal authority, its accuracy was questioned at the time, as it has frequently been since. This modification was made (after the Constitution was completed and signed) to meet a particular case. The members of the convention had in view a French gentleman, of Kaskaskia, (Peter Menard,) as a candidate for the office of lieutenant-governor. As the Constitution originally stood, he was ineligible. It was, therefore, amended to make him eligible; and Mr. Menard was elected to the office of lieutenant-governor, at the next election thereafter |