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ecutive patronage; for wasteful and increased expenditures; for vetoing the bill to reeharter the United States Bank; for the removal of the deposites, and for other alleged delinquencies. The friends of the governor, at home and abroad, predicted that he would be able to revolutionize the politics of the state. The contest became fierce, and the excitement intense. In this state of things, a legislative committee was raised to investigate the charges preferred by the governor against the President. Mr. M'Clernand, in behalf of the committee, prepared and presented a report, which thoroughly discussed all the mooted political topics of the day, and defended and vindicated the administration of the President. It is known that the state was finally saved to the Democratic party.

During the same session of 1836-7, a system of internal improvements was adopted. Mr. M'Clernand had been elected, and, after his election, had been formally instructed by his constituents to support such a system. No alternative, therefore, was allowed him but to violate instructions, or vote for the system if he retained his seat. Accordingly, he voted for the system, and advocated, in a speech, the general policy of public improvements by the States. He has subsequently stat ed, in the councils of the state, that he regretted the necessity for the part he took upon this question more than any thing which has occurred in connection with his political career. Referring to this subject at a subsequent period, he thus expresses himself:

"If we look to the circumstances of the time, we shall find a satisfactory solution of the matter. Rail-roads and canals were the mania of the time. Banks had multiplied; paper money had become never so plenty; speculation had inflamed the public mind, and become rife throughout Europe and America. Causes of imperious and world-wide operation were driving nations and individuals, heedless and infatuated, upon the treacherous rocks of speculation. The extravagance committed by Illinois, was committed, in greater or less degree, by almost every state in the Union, and by thousands of individuals. Her failure, therefore, was not an exception, but a misfortune in which individuals and nations equally shared. The convulsion and the calamity were general; their causes originated in the great and mysterious law which appoints to human affairs VOL. I.-K K

the periodical fluctuations which are typified in the diurnal fluctuations of the sea."

During the same session of 1836-7, a controversy arose respecting the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which had wellnigh defeated that great and popular work, and to the character of which we have elsewhere referred. Mr. M'Ciernand was an efficient and bold advocate of what is known as the "deep-cut plan," which, with some amendments, was finally adopted. After the controversy had been adjusted, the offices of commissioner and treasurer of the canal were tendered to him, and he was elected unanimously, we believe, by the Legislature.

In 1837 he entered upon the duties of this twofold office. In the spring of 1839 the state found herself without adequate means to carry on the work, and Mr. M'Clernand, deeming it useless to continue his connection with it, resigned the office. His faithful administration of his responsible trust upon the canal was responded to by complimentary resolutions adopted at public meetings.

In 1838, some influential men, members of a State Convention, urged Mr. M-Clernand to accept the nomination for lieutenant governor, but he declined the offer on the ground, which he communicated to the Convention, that he was not thirty years of age, and was therefore ineligible under the Constitution. Among the resolutions adopted by this Convention, we see the following, which had previously been prepared by Mr. M'Clernand, and which he regarded as breathing the true spirit. of democracy:

"Resolved, That the Democratic principle is founded on an imperishable basis of truth and justice, and perpetually striving to sustain society in the exercise of every power which can promote human happiness and elevate our condition; that, instead of warring against order, and encroaching upon the priv ileges of others, the spirit of democracy maintains an active principle of hope and virtue.

"Resolved, That we recognize no power but that which yields to the restraints of duty and is guided by mind; that we only seek to obtain influence by means of free conviction; that we condemn all appeals to brute force and the exercise of violence, and that our only means of persuasion are reason and truth.

"Resolved, That our first aim is to connect our party with the cause of intelligence and morality; to seek the protection of every right consistent with the genius of our institutions and the spirit of the age. We desire to extend moral culture, and to remove, as far as possible, all inequalities in our human condition, by embracing all improvements which can ameliorate our moral and political state."

After the success of the Democratic party in the gubernatorial election, Governor Carlin, during the session of the Legislature in 1838-9, nominated Mr. M'Clernand to the Senate for confirmation to the office of Secretary of State, to take the place of Alexander P. Field, a Whig. The Whigs, with the aid of two or three Democrats, who believed that the governor had no power to remove the incumbent, rejected the nomination. Afterward, during the same session, as we have stated, Mr. M'Clernand was elected canal commissioner and treasurer. His rejection brought in question the power of the executive to remove the secretary. The Democrats insisted upon the existence of such a power. The Whigs denied it, and, by consequence, as was alleged, affirmed the indefeasibility of the tenure of the office. The question became very engrossing and exciting. It became a question of "life offices" on the one side, and the "defeasibility of offices" on the other, according to the newspapers of the day. The people in primary meetings, and the press, took up the question. On the adjournment of the Legislature, the governor reappointed Mr. M'Clernand to the office. Mr. Field refused to vacate it, or deliver over the seal of state. This added fuel to the flame, and it was decided to test the question by judicial decision. A quo warranto was sued out against Mr. Field, to which he answered, denying the power of the governor to remove him. Judge Breese, before whom the court was held, delivered an elaborate opinion in favor of the power of the governor to remove the secretary, and against any doctrine favoring the indefeasibility of office. Mr. Field took an appeal to the Supreme Court, who reversed the decision of the Circuit Court, and confirmed him in the office.

The principle involved continued to agitate the public mind. The governor nominated one or two other individuals to the office, who were in turn rejected on the same ground. He, however, persevered in the assertion of his right to appoint his own

secretary, until at length he succeeded in procuring a majority in both branches of the Legislature favorable to his views, when, with the advice and consent of the Senate, he appointed a man of his own choice.

In 1840 Mr. M'Clernand was elected a second time to the Legislature from the county of Gallatin. A large majority of Democrats were returned to both branches. The most exciting question of the session was the passage of the new Judiciary Bill. The Supreme Court had given great offense to the people of the state, not only on account of its decision on the quo warranto, but especially with reference to the right of aliens to vote under the Constitution of the state. The Legislature went to work to reform the judiciary, and this was done. In the debate upon the bill having this last-mentioned object in view, Mr. M'Clernand, on the authority of a highly respectable gentleman, made a statement imputing improper conduct to the Supreme Court in regard to a cause involving the exercise of the elective franchise, to which Theophilus W. Smith, one of the judges of the Supreme Court, took exception. The consequence was a challenge from Judge Smith, which was promptly accepted by Mr. M'Clernand, who immediately repaired to the place of meeting. But the judge failed to do so, and the hostile meeting never took place.

In December, 1839, Mr. M'Clernand, Adam W. Snyder, then former representative in Congress, and afterward Democratic nominee for governor, whose election was only prevented by his death, James H. Ralston, Isaac P. Walker, and John W. Eldridge, were nominated by a State Convention for electors to support Martin Van Buren and Richard M. Johnson, Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President. The Whig ticket for electors, pledged to support General Harrison and John Tyler, were Samuel D. Marshall, Edwin B. Webb, Abram Lincoln, now representative in Congress, Cyrus Walker, and Buckner S. Morris. The canvass was no ordinary one. It was an energetic struggle, protracted for months: the stake was a state which might, as was supposed by many, decide the election. The result was a majority of about four thousand votes for Van Buren and Johnson in that portion of the state, the majority in the whole state being about nineteen hundred. On a late occasion, Mr. M'Clernand, in a speech review

ing and vindicating his political conduct, thus refers to that

contest:

"In the same year, fellow-citizens, I became a candidate for elector for President and Vice-President. If ever there was a

The chaff was win

time that tried men's souls, that was one. nowed from the wheat, the dross was purged from the pure gold. Thousands and tens of thousands, professing the noble cause of democracy, went over to the tents of the enemy, to swell the syren pæans of a chieftain, or to secure on the side of numbers what they could not expect from the defeat of principles. Where was I then? Did I not stand firm? Was not my voice heard loud and distinct, cheering on the democracy to duty and to combat? Did I not fight the good fight, and keep the faith to the end? It is for you, fellow-citizens, not me, to answer. Illinois, I am proud to say, stood unscathed and unshaken in that terrible conflict. She loomed up, amid the infernal chaos that rolled around, a sturdy and towering rock, upon which the scanty but dauntless legions of democracy have since rallied for renewed and victorious contest. Never, my countrymen, was I prouder than when you and others, inhabiting the same part of the state as myself, commissioned me to deposit in the electoral college at Springfield a majority of four thousand votes for Martin Van Buren for President and for Richard M. Johnson for Vice-President."

We have stated that in 1840 Mr. M'Clernand was elected to the Legislature for the second time from Gallatin county, being at the same time a candidate for elector. His position as a leading representative of the Democratic party, in the character of a nominated candidate for elector, arrayed against his election to the Legislature the most active and vigilant opposition by the Whigs. He was attacked through the press, by anonymous hand-bills, and by every mode of party warfare; yet he met his opponents every where, and was elected to the Leg. islature by a larger vote, we believe, than was cast for him as a candidate for elector for President and Vice-President.

In 1842 he was elected to the Legislature for the third time from the county of Gallatin. At this time, as we have stated, Illinois was involved in complicated embarrassments: for bank stock subscribed in the banks of the state, more than three millions of dollars; for internal improvements, more than ten

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