Creating the Land of Lincoln: The History and Constitutions of Illinois, 1778–1870 by Frank Cicero Jr. (review)

In the four decades following statehood in 1818, Illinois grew from a population of a mere 40,000 to become, in 1860, the fourth largest state in the Union in both population and wealth. Frank Cicero examines the effects of this transformation from the colonial period through the Illinois Constitutional Convention of 1869. Bringing his legal training to bear, Cicero presents a legal history of nineteenth-century Illinois, using the state's first three constitutional conventions as touchstones.

Slavery is a prominent theme in this evolution—both the institution itself as well as the legal forms of exclusion and social control that emerged (or, at least, were debated) after slavery was formally abolished in Illinois. Cicero demonstrates how the early embrace of slavery reflected both the deep French roots of the Illinois country and the early influx of settlers from the American South. Demography, however, is a powerful force. The great majority of subsequent settlers originated from the Northeast as well as from overseas. Abolitionist ideas found much greater traction among these newer arrivals.

A philosophical opposition to slavery and social acceptance of black Americans were two very different things. Cicero recounts how, despite the apparent "victory" of the Illinois abolitionists, there remained considerable opposition to the presence of free people of color within the state. This issue was, perhaps, the most contentious of those debated in the convention that produced the constitution of 1848. As with the national discord that would soon follow, the delegates split along largely regional lines of northern verses southern Illinois.

The other major theme of Cicero's book is how the law reflected the demands of economic development, particularly in the northern part of the state. The settlement of the ongoing border issue with Wisconsin assured that the future metropolis of Chicago would belong to Illinois. More than just Illinois's largest city, Chicago became the largest and most important railway hub in the nation. By the 1880s, Chicago came to completely overshadow nearby St. Louis as an urban and industrial center. In addition to railroads, delegates and legislators struggled with other internal improvements, such as new roads and the Illinois and Michigan Canal project. While these ambitious infrastructure projects encouraged settlement and economic growth, they needed to be funded.

Cicero recounts how after statehood, Illinois legislatures "rashly put the state into the banking business, with disastrous consequences" (96). Many nineteenth-century Illinoisans objected to government banks as a matter of general principle. Others prominent figures, such as John McLean, vigorously opposed the idea of founding a State Bank of Illinois without any capital and relying solely on the state's credit. The results, as one might expect, were disastrous. Nine years after its founding in 1821, the legislature liquidated the State Bank of Illinois after the currency lost 70 percent of its value, costing the state over $400,000.

Despite the mistakes and misadventures of the past, Cicero's history of Illinois is a story of progress. By taking the reader through the state's first three constitutions—and the circumstances surrounding their drafting conventions—the author reveals how economic and political power shifted to the more populous, and more politically progressive, northern part of the state. This new Illinois found expression in the constitution of 1870, which served as the state's fundamental law for just over one hundred years—until the Illinois Constitutional Convention of 1970, to which Cicero himself was a delegate.

While Creating the Land of Lincoln is generally well-written and well-organized, there are times when the narrative wanders off-point, drawn astray by the temptations of narrating colorful figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass. The work has a bifurcated feel: in some parts, Cicero seems inclined towards a general history of pre-1870 Illinois, while in others he presents a more narrowly focused legal history. The contribution of the...