Constitution of Illinois

“ He was defeated by a plurality of 240 by General James Martin, Republican candidate. As a member of the convention of 1872, which framed the present Constitution of Illinois, he introduced a resolution declaring it to be the sense of the convention that all offices, legislative, executive and judicial, provided for by the new Constitution, should be filled by elections by the people. Before his election to the bench, and after his retirement therefrom, he practiced law in Marion and the adjoining counties. ”

“ Illinois, though guaranteed its freedom by the Ordinance of 1787, nevertheless underwent a severe political struggle in which, about four years after her admission into the Union, politicians and settlers from the South made a determined effort to change her to a slave State. The legislature of 1822-23, with a two-thirds pro-slavery majority of the State Senate, and a technical, but legally questionable, two-thirds majority in the House, submitted to popular vote an act calling a State convention to change the constitution. ”

“ The general assembly shall have full power to exclude from the privilege of electing or being elected any person convicted of bribery, perjury, or any other infamous crime. 31. In the year 1820 and every fifth year thereafter, an enumeration of all the white inhabitants of the state shall be made in such manner as shall be directed by law. 32. All bills for raising a revenue shall originate in the house of representatives subject, however, to amendment, or rejection as in other cases. ART. III. 1. The executive power of the state shall be vested in a governor. ”

“ That no freeman shall be imprisoned or disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed or exiled, or in any manner deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. And all lands which have been granted as a common to the inhabitants of any town, hamlet village, or corporation, by any person, body politic or corporate, or by any government having power to make such grant, shall forever remain common to the inhabitants of such tow n, hamlet, village, or corporation ”

“ If any distinction were to be made it hardly could be adverse to the jurisdiction of Illinois, in view of the requirements of its Constitution and statutes, that a majority of the directors should be residents of Illinois, and that the corporation should keep a general office in that state. We are of opinion that the defendant must be regarded in this suit as a citizen of Illinois, and therefore as having had no right to remove. ”

“ Although a majority of the public men of the state, indeed probably a majority of the entire population, was either born in the Southern states or descended from Southern people, the resolution of the legislature was rejected, the leader of the opposition being Governor Edward Coles (1786–1868) , a Virginia slave-holder, who had freed his slaves on coming to Illinois, and at least one half the votes against the proposed amendment of the constitution were cast by men of Southern birth. The opposition to slavery, however, was at first economic, not philanthropic. ”

“ Now, they may be for or against me, they may like me or not, but the people of Illinois have every right to expect that the decision they've made when they've chosen a governor, if he or she is going to be removed from office, that the process ought to at least have fundamental fairness and have all the safeguards that our Constitution guarantees to all of our citizens. ”

“ Illinois should be exempt from taxation for five years from date of sale; the Illinois Constitution provided for the employment of slaves at the salt works; an act provided for the location of the college township ”

“ Other municipalities may elect by referendum to become home rule units. Except as limited by this Section, a home rule unit may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs including, but not limited to, the power to regulate for the protection of the public health, safety, morals and welfare; to license; to tax; and to incur debt. (b) A home rule unit by referendum may elect not to be a home rule unit. (c) If a home rule county ordinance conflicts with an ordinance of a municipality, the municipal ordinance shall prevail within its jurisdiction. ”

“ In other words, according to the settled doctrines of the supreme court of Illinois, it would have been competent for the legal voters of the town, under legislative authority for that purpose previously given,-such voters being its 'corporate authorities' in the meaning of the state constitution as interpreted by the highest courts of Illinois,-to have required the subscription to be made, and the bonds to be issued, which were in fact made and issued pursuant to the unauthorized election of August 3, 1868. ”

“ Whether the anti-slavery clause of the Ordinance of 1787 freed the slaves of the old French settlers was long a disputed question, and it is certain that a strict construction of the Illinois Constitution of 1818 made further importation of slaves illegal. Many slave-owners passed through southern Illinois to Missouri, because the main road for emigration by land to that territory crossed the Ohio River at Shawneetown. Many of the slaves who produced the large increase in the number of slaves in Missouri from 1810 to 1820 must have gone over this route. ”

“ In 1810 the people had increased in numbers to 24,500, and in the newly-erected Territory of Illinois there was an aggregate of 12,300 persons." In 1816 "it was ascertained that the Indiana Territory possessed a population which entitled it to an independent state government. Congress authorized the election of a convention to form a state Constitution," and "the new 'State of Indiana' was formally admitted into the Union on the 19th of April, 1816." Two years later, on the 3d of December, 1818, the Territory of Illinois was similarly transformed and became one of the states of the Union. ”

“ In Missouri, however, where the Democracy had been restored to power by the Liberal-Republican movement, the new party received the support of the Republicans.
Illinois, where the farmers were first thoroughly 32 organized into clubs and Granges, was naturally the first State in which they took effective political action. The agitation for railroad regulation, which began in Illinois in the sixties, had caused the new state constitution of 1870 to include mandatory provisions directing the legislature to pass laws to prevent extortion and unjust discrimination in railway charges. ”

“ There shall be elected in and for each county, one county judge and one clerk of the county court, whose terms of office shall be four years. But the general assembly may create districts of two or more contiguous counties, in each of which shall be elected one judge, who shall take the place of, and exercise the powers and jurisdiction of county judges in such districts. County courts shall be courts of record, and shall have original jurisdiction in all matters of probate; settlement of estates of deceased persons; appointment of guardians and conservators, and settlements of their accounts ”