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The Jefferson-Lemen Compact
The Relations of
Thomas Jefferson and James Lemen
in the Exclusion of Slavery from Illinois
and the Northwest Territory
with Related Documents
1781-1818
A Paper read before the
Chicago Historical Society
February 16, 1915
By
Willard C. MacNaul
[Illustration: Arms]
The University of Chicago Press
1915
Copyright by
CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
1915
CONTENTS {p.03}
INTRODUCTION
1. Sketch of James Lemen.................................. 7
2. Lemen's Relations with Jefferson in Virginia........... 9
3. Lemen's Anti-Slavery Mission in Illinois--
Slavery in Illinois until 1787...................... 11
Prohibition of Slavery by Ordinance of 1787......... 11
The Slavery Conflict under Gov. St. Clair
(1787-1800)....................................... 12
The Slavery Conflict under Gov. Harrison
(1801-1809)....................................... 13
Slavery Question in the Movement for Division
of Indiana Territory in 1808-9.................... 16
James Lemen's Anti-Slavery Influence in the
Baptist Churches until 1809....................... 16
Slavery under Gov. Ninian Edwards (1809-1818)....... 19
Slavery in the Campaign for Statehood in 1818....... 19
4. Available Materials Relating to the Subject........... 23
5. Account of the "Lemen Family Notes"................... 24
DOCUMENTS
I. Diary of James Lemen, Sr.............................. 26
II. History of the Relations of James Lemen
and Thos. Jefferson, by J. M. Peck.................. 32
III. How Illinois Got Chicago, by Jos. B. Lemen............ 37
IV. Address to the Friends of Freedom..................... 38
V. Recollections of a Centennarian, by
Dr. W. F. Boyakin................................... 39
VI. In Memory of Rev. Jas. Lemen, Sr...................... 41
VII. Statement by Editor of _Belleville Advocate_.......... 41
VIII. Letter of Rev. J. M. Peck on the Old Lemen
Family Notes........................................ 42
PIONEER LETTERS {p.04}
IX. Letter of Senator Douglas to Rev. Jas. Lemen, Sr...... 46
X. Announcement by J. B. Lemen........................... 48
XL. Letter of Gov. Ninian Edwards to Jas. Lemen, Jr....... 49
XII. Letter of A. W. Snyder to Jas. Lemen, Sr.............. 49
XIII. Letter of Abraham Lincoln to Jas. Lemen, Jr........... 50
XIV. The Lemen Monument--Lemen's War Record................ 51
XV. Sketch of Rev. James Lemen, Sr., by J. M. Peck........ 52
XVI. Old Lemen Family Notes, Statement by Jos. B. Lemen.... 56
References............................................ 59
NOTE {p.05}
The materials here presented were collected in connection with the
preparation of a history of the first generation of Illinois Baptists.
The narrative introduction is printed substantially as delivered at a
special meeting of the Chicago Historical Society, and, with the
collection of documents, is published in response to inquiries
concerning the so-called "Lemen Family Notes," and in compliance with
the request for a contribution to the publications of this Society. It
is hoped that the publication may serve to elicit further information
concerning the alleged "Notes," the existence of which has become a
subject of more or less interest to historians. The compiler merely
presents the materials at their face value, without assuming to pass
critical judgment upon them.
W. C. M.
INTRODUCTION {p.07}
RELATIONS OF JAMES LEMEN AND THOMAS JEFFERSON IN THE EXCLUSION OF
SLAVERY FROM ILLINOIS AND THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY
In view of the approaching centennary of statehood in Illinois, the
name of James Lemen takes on a timely interest because of his
services--social, religious, and political--in the making of the
Commonwealth. He was a native of Virginia, born and reared in the
vicinity of Harper's Ferry. He served a two-years' enlistment in the
Revolutionary War under Washington, and afterwards returned to his
regiment during the siege of Yorktown. His "Yorktown Notes" in his
diary give some interesting glimpses of his participation in that
campaign.[1] His Scotch ancestors had served in a similar cause under
Cromwell, whose wedding gift to one of their number is still cherished
as a family heirloom.
Upon leaving the army James Lemen married Catherine Ogle, daughter of
Captain Joseph Ogle, whose name is perpetuated in that of Ogle county,
Illinois. The Ogles were of old English stock, some of whom at least
were found on the side of Cromwell and the Commonwealth. Catherine's
family at one time lived on the South Branch of the Potomac, although
at the time of her marriage her home was near Wheeling. Captain Ogle's
commission, signed by Gov. Patrick Henry, is now a valued possession
of one of Mrs. Lemen's descendants. James and Catherine Lemen were
well fitted by nature and training for braving the hardships and
brightening the privations of life on the frontier, far removed from
home and friends, or even the abodes of their nearest white kinsmen.
During, and even before the war, young Lemen is reputed to have been
the protégé of Thomas Jefferson, through whose influence he became a
civil and religious leader in the pioneer period of Illinois history.
Gov. Reynolds, in his writings relating to this period,[2] gives
various sketches of the man and his family, and his name occurs
frequently in {p.08} the records of the times. He was among the first
to follow Col. Clark's men to the Illinois country, where he
established the settlement of New Design, one of the earliest American
colonies in what was, previous to his arrival, the "Illinois county"
of the Old Dominion. Here he served, first as a justice of the peace,
and then as a judge of the court of the original county of St. Clair,
and thus acquired the title of "Judge Lemen."[3] Here, too, he became
the progenitor of the numerous Illinois branch of the Lemen family,
whose genealogy and family history was recently published by Messrs.
Frank and Joseph B. Lemen--a volume of some four hundred and fifty
pages, and embracing some five hundred members of the family.
True to his avowed purpose in coming to Illinois, young Lemen became a
leader of anti-slavery sentiment in the new Territory, and,
undoubtedly, deserves to be called one of the Fathers of the Free
State Constitution, which was framed in 1818 and preserved in 1824.
His homestead, the "Old Lemen Fort" at New Design, which is still the
comfortable home of the present owner, is the birthplace of the
Baptist denomination in Illinois; and he himself is commemorated as
the recognized founder of that faith in this State, by a granite shaft
in the family burial plot directly in front of the old home. This
memorial was dedicated in 1909 by Col. William Jennings Bryan, whose
father, Judge Bryan, of Salem, Illinois, was the first to suggest it
as a well-deserved honor.
James Lemen, Sr., also became the father and leader of the noted
"Lemen Family Preachers," consisting of himself and six stalwart sons,
all but one of whom were regularly ordained Baptist ministers. The
eldest son, Robert, although never ordained, was quite as active and
efficient in the cause as any of the family. This remarkable family
eventually became the nucleus of a group of anti-slavery Baptist
churches in Illinois which had a very important influence upon the
issue of that question in the State. Rev. James Lemen, Jr., who is
said to have been the second American boy born in the Illinois
country, succeeded to his father's position of leadership in the
anti-slavery movement of the times, and served as the representative
of St. Clair county in the Territorial Legislature, the Constitutional
Convention, and the State Senate. The younger James Lemen was on terms
of intimacy with Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, and {p.09} his
cousin, Ward Lamon, was Lincoln's early associate in the law, and also
his first biographer. Various representatives of the family in later
generations have attained success as farmers, physicians, teachers,
ministers, and lawyers throughout southern Illinois and other sections
of the country.[4]
The elder James Lemen was himself an interesting character, and,
entirely apart from his relations with Jefferson, he is a significant
factor in early Illinois history. His fight for free versus slave
labor in Illinois and the Northwest derives a peculiar interest,
however, from its association with the great name of Jefferson. The
principles for which the latter stood--but not necessarily his
policies--have a present-day interest for us greater than those of his
contemporaries, because those principles are the "live issues" of our
own times. Jefferson is to that extent our contemporary, and hence his
name lends a living interest to otherwise obscure persons and remote
events. The problem of free labor versus slave labor we have with us
still, and in a much more complex and widespread form than in
Jefferson's day.
According to the current tradition, a warm personal friendship sprang
up between Jefferson and young Lemen, who was seventeen years the
junior of his distinguished patron and friend. In a letter to Robert,
brother of James Lemen, attributed to Jefferson, he writes: "Among all
my friends who are near, he is still a little nearer. I discovered his
worth when he was but a child, and I freely confess that in some of my
most important achievements his example, wish, and advice, though then
but a very young man, largely influenced my action." In a sketch of
the relations of the two men by Dr. John M. Peck we are told that
"after Jefferson became President of the United States, he retained
all of his early affection for Mr. Lemen"; and upon the occasion of a
visit of a mutual friend to the President, in 1808, "he inquired after
him with all the fondness of a father."[5]
Their early relations in Virginia, so far as we have any account of
them, concerned their mutual anti-slavery interests. Peck tells us
that "Mr. Lemen was a born anti-slavery leader, and had proved himself
such in Virginia by inducing scores of masters to free their slaves
through his prevailing kindness of manner and Christian arguments."
Concerning {p.10} the cession of Virginia's claims to the Northwest
Territory, Jefferson is thus quoted, from his letter to Robert Lemen:
"Before any one had even mentioned the matter, James Lemen, by reason
of his devotion to anti-slavery principles, suggested to me that we
(Virginia) make the transfer, and that slavery be excluded; and it so
impressed and influenced me that whatever is due me as credit for my
share in the matter, is largely, if not wholly, due to James Lemen's
advice and most righteous counsel."[5]
Before this transfer was effected, it appears that Jefferson had
entered into negotiations with his young protégé with a view to
inducing him to locate in the "Illinois country" as his agent, in
order to co-operate with himself in the effort to exclude slavery from
the entire Northwest Territory. Mr. Lemen makes record of an interview
with Jefferson under date of December 11, 1782, as follows: "Thomas
Jefferson had me to visit him again a short time ago, as he wanted me
to go to the Illinois country in the Northwest after a year or two, in
order to try to lead and direct the new settlers in the best way, and
also to oppose the introduction of slavery into that country at a
later day, as I am known as an opponent of that evil; and he says he
will give me some help. It is all because of his great kindness and
affection for me, for which I am very grateful; but I have not yet
fully decided to do so, but have agreed to consider the case." In May,
1784, they had another interview, on the eve of Jefferson's departure
on his prolonged mission to France. Mr. Lemen's memorandum reads: "I
saw Jefferson at Annapolis, Maryland, to-day, and had a very pleasant
visit with him. I have consented to go to Illinois on his mission, and
he intends helping me some; but I did not ask nor wish it. We had a
full agreement and understanding as to all terms and duties. The
agreement is strictly private between us, but all his purposes are
perfectly honorable and praiseworthy."[6]
Thus the mission was undertaken which proved to be his life-work. He
had intended starting with his father-in-law, Captain Ogle, in 1785,
but was detained by illness in his family. December 28, 1785, he
records: "Jefferson's confidential agent gave me one hundred dollars
of his funds to use for my family, if need be, and if not, to go to
good causes; and I will go to Illinois on his mission next spring and
take my wife and children."
Such {p.11} was the origin and nature of the so-called
"Jefferson-Lemen Secret Anti-Slavery Compact," the available evidence
concerning which will be given at the conclusion of this paper.[7] The
anti-slavery propaganda of James Lemen and his circle constituted a
determining factor in the history of the first generation of Illinois
Baptists. To what extent Lemen co-operated with Jefferson in his
movements will appear as we proceed with the story of his efforts to
make Illinois a free State.
The "Old Dominion" ceded her "county of Illinois" to the National
domain in 1784. Jefferson's effort to provide for the exclusion of
slavery from the new Territory at that date proved abortive.
Consequently, when James Lemen arrived at the old French village of
Kaskaskia in July, 1786, he found slavery legally entrenched in all
the former French possessions in the "Illinois country." It had been
introduced by Renault, in 1719, who brought 500 negroes from Santo
Domingo (then a French possession) to work the mines which he expected
to develop in this section of the French Colonial Empire.[8] It is a
noteworthy fact that slavery was established on the soil of Illinois
just a century after its introduction on the shores of Virginia. When
the French possessions were taken over by Great Britain at the close
of the colonial struggle in 1763, that country guaranteed the French
inhabitants the possession of all their property, including slaves.
When Col. Clark, of Virginia, took possession of this region in 1778,
the State likewise guaranteed the inhabitants the full enjoyment of
all their property rights. By the terms of the Virginia cession of
1784 to the National Government, all the rights and privileges of the
former citizens of Virginia were assured to them in the ceded
district. Thus, at the time of Lemen's arrival, slavery had been
sanctioned on the Illinois prairies for sixty-seven years. One year
from the date of his arrival, however, the Territorial Ordinance of
1787 was passed, with the prohibition of slavery, as originally
proposed by Jefferson in 1784.[9] Thus it would seem that the desired
object had already been attained. By the terms of the famous "Sixth
Article of Compact," contained in that Ordinance, it was declared that
"there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said
Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the
accused shall have been duly convicted." This looks like a sweeping
and final disposition of {p.12} the matter, but it was not accepted
as such until the lapse of another fifty-seven years. But neither
Jefferson nor his agents on the ground had anticipated so easy a
victory. Indeed, they had foreseen that a determined effort would be
made by the friends of slavery to legalize that institution in the
Territory. Almost at once, in fact, the conflict commenced, which was
to continue actively for thirty-seven years. Like the Nation itself,
the Illinois country was to be for a large part of its history "half
slave and half free"--both in sentiment and in practice.
Two attempts against the integrity of the "Sixth Article" were made
during Gov. St. Clair's administration. The trouble began with the
appeals of the French slave-holders against the loss of their
slaves.[10] As civil administration under the Territorial government
was not established among the Illinois settlements until 1790, both
the old French inhabitants and the new American colonists suffered all
manner of disabilities and distresses in the interval between 1784 and
1790, while just across the Mississippi there was a settled and
prosperous community under the Spanish government of Louisiana. When,
therefore, the French masters appealed to Gen. St. Clair, in 1787, to
protect them against the loss of the principal part of their wealth,
represented by their slaves, he had to face the alternative of the
loss of these substantial citizens by migration with their slaves to
the Spanish side of the river. And, in order to pacify these
petitioners, St. Clair gave it as his opinion that the prohibition of
slavery in the Ordinance was not retroactive, and hence did not affect
the rights of the French masters in their previously acquired slave
property. As this view accorded with the "compact" contained in the
Virginia deed of cession, it was sanctioned by the old Congress, and
was later upheld by the new Federal Government; and this construction
of the Ordinance of 1787 continued to prevail in Illinois until 1845,
when the State Supreme Court decreed that the prohibition was
absolute, and that, consequently, slavery in any form had never had
any legal sanction in Illinois since 1787.[11]
It does not appear that Mr. Lemen took any active measures against
this construction of the anti-slavery ordinance at the time. He was,
indeed, himself a petitioner, with other American settlers on the
"Congress lands" in Illinois, for the recognition of their claims,
which were menaced {p.13} by the general prohibition of settlement
then in effect.[12] Conditions in every respect were so insecure prior
to the organization of St. Clair county in 1790, that it was hardly to
be expected that any vigorous measure could be taken against
previously existing slavery in the colony, especially as the Americans
were then living in station forts for protection against the hostile
Indians. Moreover, Jefferson was not in the country in 1787, and hence
there was no opportunity for co-operation with him at this time. Mr.
Lemen was, however, improving the opportunity "to try to lead and
direct the new settlers in the best way"; for we find him, although
not as yet himself a "professor" of religion, engaged in promoting the
religious observance of the Sabbath on the part of the "godfearing"
element in the station fort where, with his father-in-law, he resided
(Fort Piggott). In 1789 Jefferson returned from France to become
Secretary of State in President Washington's cabinet, under the new
Federal Government. He had not forgotten his friend Lemen, as Dr. Peck
assures us that "he lost no time in sending him a message of love and
confidence by a friend who was then coming to the West."
St. Clair's construction of the prohibition of slavery unfortunately
served to weaken even its preventive force and emboldened the
pro-slavery advocates to seek persistently for the repeal, or, at
least, the "suspension" of the obnoxious Sixth Article. A second
effort was made under his administration in 1796, when a memorial,
headed by Gen. John Edgar, was sent to Congress praying for the
suspension of the Article. The committee of reference, of which the
Hon. Joshua Coit of Connecticut was chairman, reported adversely upon
this memorial, May 12, 1796.[13] It is not possible to state
positively Lemen's influence, if any, in the defeat of this appeal of
the leading citizens of the old French villages. But, as it was in
this same year that the first Protestant church in the bounds of
Illinois was organized in his house, and, as we are informed that he
endeavored to persuade the constituent members of the New Design
church to oppose slavery, we may suppose that he was already taking an
active part in opposition to the further encroachments of slavery,
especially in his own community.
The effort to remove the prohibition was renewed under Gov. Wm. Henry
Harrison, during the connection of the Illinois {p.14} settlements
with the Indiana Territory, from 1800 to 1809. Five separate attempts
were made during these years, which coincide with the term of
President Jefferson, who had removed St. Clair to make room for Gen.
Harrison. Harrison, however, yielded to the pressure of the
pro-slavery element in the Territory to use his power and influence
for their side of the question. Although their proposals were thrice
favorably reported from committee, the question never came to a vote
in Congress. The first attempt during the Indiana period was that of a
pro-slavery convention, called at the instigation of the Illinois
contingent, which met at Vincennes, in 1803, under the chairmanship of
Gov. Harrison. Their memorial to Congress, requesting merely a
temporary suspension of the prohibition, was adversely reported from
committee in view of the evident prosperity of Ohio under the same
restriction, and because "the committee deem it highly dangerous and
inexpedient to impair a provision wisely calculated to promote the
happiness and prosperity of the Northwestern country, and to give
strength and security to that extensive frontier." Referring to this
attempt of "the extreme southern slave advocates ... for the
introduction of slavery," Mr. Lemen writes, under date of May 3, 1803,
that "steps must soon be taken to prevent that curse from being
fastened on our people." The same memorial was again introduced in
Congress in February, 1804, with the provisos of a ten-year limit to
the suspension and the introduction of native born slaves only, which,
of course, would mean those of the border-state breeders. Even this
modified proposal, although approved in committee, failed to move
Congress to action. Harrison and his supporters continued nevertheless
to press the matter, and he even urged Judge Lemen, in a personal
interview, to lend his influence to the movement for the introduction
of slavery. To this suggestion Lemen replied that "the evil attempt
would encounter his most active opposition, in every possible and
honorable manner that his mind could suggest or his means
accomplish."[14]
It was about this time that the Governor and judges took matters in
their own hands and introduced a form of indentured service, which,
although technically within the prohibition of _involuntary_
servitude, amounted practically to actual slavery. Soon after, in
order to give this institution a more secure legal sanction, by
legislative enactment, the {p.15} second grade of territorial
government was hastily and high-handedly forced upon the people for
this purpose. It was probably in view of these measures that Mr. Lemen
recorded his belief that President Jefferson "will find means to
overreach the evil attempts of the pro-slavery party." Early in the
year 1806 the Vincennes memorial was introduced into Congress for the
third time and again favorably reported from committee, but to no
avail. It was about this time, as we learn from his diary, that Mr.
Lemen "sent a messenger to Indiana to ask the churches and people
there to get up and sign a counter petition, to uphold freedom in the
Territory," circulating a similar petition in Illinois himself.[15]
A fourth attempt to bring the proposal before Congress was made in
January, 1807, in a formal communication from the Governor and
Territorial Legislature. The proposal was a third time favorably
reported by the committee of reference, but still without action by
the House. Finally, in November of the same year, President Jefferson
transmitted to Congress similar communications from the Indiana
government. This time the committee reported that "the citizens of
Clark county [in which was located the first Baptist church organized
in Indiana], in their remonstrance, express their sense of the
impropriety of the measure"; and that they also requested Congress not
to act upon the subject until the people had an opportunity to
formulate a State Constitution[16]. Commenting upon the whole
proceedings, Dr. Peck quotes Gov. Harrison to the effect that, though
he and Lemen were firm friends, the latter "had set his iron will
against slavery, and indirectly made his influence felt so strongly at
Washington and before Congress, that all the efforts to suspend the
anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787 failed."[17] Peck adds
that President Jefferson "quietly directed his leading confidential
friends in Congress steadily to defeat Gen. Harrison's petitions for
the repeal."[17]
It was about this time, September 10, 1807, that President Jefferson
thus expressed his estimate of James Lemen's services, in his letter
to Robert Lemen: "His record in the new country has fully justified my
course in inducing him to settle there with the view of properly
shaping events in the best interest of the people."[18] It was during
this period of the Indiana agitation for the introduction of slavery,
{p.16} as we learn from an entry in his diary dated September 10,
1806, that Mr. Lemen received a call from an agent of Aaron Burr to
solicit his aid and sympathy in Burr's scheme for a southwestern
empire, with Illinois as a Province, and an offer to make him
governor. "But I denounced the conspiracy as high treason," he says,
"and gave him a few hours to leave the Territory on pain of
arrest."[19] It should be noted that at this date he was not himself a
magistrate, which, perhaps, accounts for his apparent leniency towards
what he regarded as a treasonable proposal.
The year 1809, the date of the separation of Illinois from the Indiana
Territory, marks a crisis in the Lemen anti-slavery campaign in
Illinois.[20] The agitation under the Indiana government for the
further recognition of slavery in the Territory was mainly instigated
by the Illinois slave-holders and their sympathizers among the
American settlers from the slave states. The people of Indiana proper,
except those of the old French inhabitants of Vincennes, who were
possessed of slaves, were either indifferent or hostile towards
slavery. Its partisans in the Illinois counties of the Territory, in
the hope of promoting their object thereby, now sought division of the
Indiana Territory and the erection of a separate government for
Illinois at Kaskaskia. This movement aroused a bitter political
struggle in the Illinois settlements, one result of which was the
murder of young Rice Jones in the streets of Kaskaskia. The division
was advocated on the ground of convenience and opposed on the score of
expense. The divisionists, however, seem to have been animated mainly
by the desire to secure the introduction of slavery as soon as
statehood could be attained for their section. The division was
achieved in 1809, and with it the prompt adoption of the system of
indentured service already in vogue under the Indiana government. And
from that time forth the fight was on between the free-state and
slave-state parties in the new Territory. Throughout the independent
territorial history of Illinois, slavery was sanctioned partly by law
and still further by custom. Gov. Ninian Edwards, whose religious
affiliations were with the Baptists, not only sanctioned slavery, but,
as is well known, was himself the owner of slaves during the
territorial period.
It was in view of this evident determination to make of Illinois
Territory a slave state, that James Lemen, with Jefferson's approval,
took the radical step of organizing a {p.17} distinctively
anti-slavery church as a means of promoting the free-state cause.[21]
From the first, indeed, he had sought to promote the cause of
temperance and of anti-slavery in and through the church. He tells us
in his diary, in fact, that he "hoped to employ the churches as a
means of opposition to the institution of slavery."[21] He was reared
in the Presbyterian faith, his stepfather being a minister of that
persuasion; but at twenty years of age he embraced Baptist principles,
apparently under the influence of a Baptist minister in Virginia,
whose practice it was to bar from membership all who upheld the
institution of slavery. He thus identified himself with the struggles
for civil, religious, and industrial liberty, all of which were then
actively going on in his own state.
The name of "New Design," which became attached to the settlement
which he established on the upland prairies beyond the bluffs of the
"American Bottom," is said to have originated from a quaint remark of
his that he "had a 'new design' to locate a settlement south of
Bellefontaine" near the present town of Waterloo.[22] The name "New
Design," however, became significant of his anti-slavery mission; and
when, after ten years of pioneer struggles, he organized The Baptist
Church of Christ at New Design, in 1796, he soon afterwards induced
that body--the first Protestant church in the bounds of the present
State--to adopt what were known as "Tarrant's Rules Against Slavery."
The author of these rules, the Rev. James Tarrant, of Virginia, later
of Kentucky, one of the "emancipating preachers," eventually organized
the fraternity of anti-slavery Baptist churches in Kentucky, who
called themselves "Friends to Humanity."
From 1796 to 1809 Judge Lemen was active in the promotion of Baptist
churches and a Baptist Association. He labored to induce all these
organizations to adopt his anti-slavery principles, and in this he was
largely successful; but, with the increase of immigrant Baptists from
the slave states, it became increasingly difficult to maintain these
principles in their integrity. And when, in the course of the campaign
for the division of the Territory in 1808, it became apparent that the
lines between the free-state and the slave-state forces were being
decisively drawn, Lemen prepared to take a more radical stand in the
struggle. With this design in view he asked and obtained the formal
sanction of {p.18} his church as a licensed preacher. In the course
of the same year, 1808, he is said to have received a confidential
message from Jefferson "suggesting a division of the churches on the
question of slavery, and the organization of a church on a strictly
anti-slavery basis, for the purpose of heading a movement to make
Illinois a free state."[21] According to another, and more probable,
version of this story, when Jefferson learned, through a mutual friend
(Mr. S. H. Biggs), of Lemen's determination to force the issue in the
church to the point of division, if necessary, he sent him a message
of approval of his proposed course and accompanied it with a
contribution of $20 for the contemplated anti-slavery church.
The division of the Territory was effected early in the year 1809, and
in the summer of that year, after vainly trying to hold all the
churches to their avowed anti-slavery principles, Elder Lemen, in a
sermon at Richland Creek Baptist church, threw down the gauntlet to
his pro-slavery brethren and declared that he could no longer maintain
church fellowship with them. His action caused a division in the
church, which was carried into the Association at its ensuing meeting,
in October, 1809, and resulted in the disruption of that body into
three parties on the slavery question--the conservatives, the
liberals, and the radicals. The latter element, headed by "the Lemen
party," as it now came to be called, held to the principles of The
Friends to Humanity, and proposed to organize a branch of that order
of Baptists. When it came to the test, however, the new church was
reduced to a constituent membership consisting of some seven or eight
members of the Lemen family. Such was the beginning of what is now the
oldest surviving Baptist church in the State, which then took the name
of "The Baptized Church of Christ, Friends to Humanity, on Cantine
(Quentin) Creek." It is located in the neighborhood of the old Cahokia
mound. Its building, when it came to have one, was called "Bethel
Meeting House," and in time the church itself became known as "Bethel
Baptist Church."
The distinctive basis of this church is proclaimed in its simple
constitution, to which every member was required to subscribe:
"Denying union and communion with all persons holding the doctrine of
perpetual, involuntary, hereditary slavery." This church began its
career as "a family church," in the literal sense of the word; but it
prospered nevertheless, {p.19} until it became a numerically strong
and vigorous organization which has had an active and honorable career
of a hundred years' duration. Churches of the same name and principles
multiplied and maintained 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
document, which he gave to Pope with the request to have it embodied
in the Enabling Act.[24] This statement was repeated and amplified by
Mr. Joseph B. Lemen in an article in _The Chicago Tribune_.[25] It is
a well-known fact that the vote of these fourteen northern counties
secured the State to the anti-slavery party in 1856; but as this
section of the State was not settled until long after its admission
into the Union, the measure, whatever its origin, had no effect upon
the Constitutional Convention. However, John Messinger, of New Design,
who surveyed the Military Tract and, later, also the northern boundary
line, may very well have made such a plat, either on his own motion or
at the suggestion of the zealous anti-slavery leader, with whom he was
well acquainted. As Messinger was later associated with Peck in the
Rock Spring Seminary, and in the publication of a sectional map of
Illinois, it would seem that Peck was in a position to know the facts
as well as Ford.
In the campaign for the election of delegates to the Constitutional
Convention, slavery was the only question seriously agitated. The
Lemen churches and their sympathizers were so well organized and so
determined in purpose that they made a very energetic and effective
campaign for delegates. Their organization for political purposes, as
Peck informs us, "always kept one of its members and several of its
friends in the Territorial Legislature; and five years before the
constitutional election in 1818, it had fifty resident agents--men of
like sympathies--quietly at work in the several settlements; and the
masterly manner in which they did their duty was shown by a poll which
they made of the voters some few weeks before the election, which, on
their side, varied only a few votes from the official count after the
election."[23]
It is difficult to determine from the meager records of the
proceedings, even including the Journal of the Convention recently
published, just what the complexion of the body was on the slavery
question. Mr. W. Kitchell, a descendant of one of the delegates,
states that there were twelve delegates that favored the recognition
of slavery by a {p.21} specific article in the Constitution, and
twenty-one that opposed such action. Gov. Coles, who was present as a
visitor and learned the sentiments of the prominent members, says that
many, but not a majority of the Convention, were in favor of making
Illinois a slave state.[26] During the session of the Convention an
address to The Friends of Freedom was published by a company of
thirteen leading men, including James Lemen, Sr., to the effect that a
determined effort was to be made in the Convention to give sanction to
slavery, and urging concerted action "to defeat the plans of those who
wish either a temporary or an unlimited slavery."[27] A majority of
the signers of this address were Lemen's Baptist friends, and its
phraseology points to him as its author.
James Lemen, Jr., was a delegate from St. Clair county and a member of
the committee which drafted the Constitution. In the original draft of
that instrument, slavery was prohibited in the identical terms of the
Ordinance of 1787, as we learn from the recently published journal of
the Convention. In the final draft this was changed to read: "Neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude shall hereafter be introduced," and
the existing system of indentured service was also incorporated. These
changes were the result of compromise, and Lemen consistently voted
against them. He was nevertheless one of the committee of three
appointed to revise and engross the completed instrument.
The result was a substantial victory for the Free-State Party; and had
the Convention actually overridden the prohibition contained in the
original Territorial Ordinance, as it was then interpreted, it is
evident, from the tone of the address to The Friends of Freedom, that
the Lemen circle would have made a determined effort to defeat the
measure in Congress.[27]
Dr. Peck, who, like Gov. Coles, was a visitor to the Convention, and
who had every opportunity to know all the facts, in summing up the
evidence in regard to the matter, declares it to be "conclusive that
Mr. Lemen created and organized the forces which confirmed Illinois,
if not the Northwest Territory, to freedom." Speaking of the current
impression that the question of slavery was not much agitated in
Illinois prior to the Constitutional Convention, Gov. Coles says: "On
the contrary, at a very early period of the settlement of Illinois,
the question was warmly agitated by zealous {p.22} advocates and
opponents of slavery," and that, although during the period of the
independent Illinois Territory the agitation was lulled, it was not
extinguished, "as was seen [from] its mingling itself so actively both
in the election and the conduct of the members of the Convention, in
1818."[26]
Senator Douglas, in a letter to James Lemen, Jr., is credited with
full knowledge of the "Jefferson-Lemen Anti-Slavery Compact" and a
high estimate of its significance in the history of the slavery
contest in Illinois and the Northwest Territory. "This matter assumes
a phase of personal interest with me," he says, "and I find myself,
politically, in the good company of Jefferson and your father. With
them everything turned on whether the people of the Territory wanted
slavery or not, ... and that appears to me to be the correct
doctrine."[28] Lincoln, too, in a letter to the younger James Lemen,
is quoted as having a personal knowledge of the facts and great
respect for the senior Lemen in the conflict for a free state in
Illinois. "Both your father and Lovejoy," he remarks, "were pioneer
leaders in the cause of freedom, and it has always been difficult for
me to see why your father, who was a resolute, uncompromising, and
aggressive leader, who boldly proclaimed his purpose to make both the
Territory and the State free, never aroused nor encountered any of
that mob violence which, both in St. Louis and in Alton, confronted
and pursued Lovejoy."[29] Of the latter he says: "His letters, among
your old family notes, were of more interest to me than even those of
Thomas Jefferson to your father."
Jefferson's connection with Lemen's anti-slavery mission in Illinois
was never made public, apparently, until the facts were published by
Mr. Joseph B. Lemen, of the third generation, in the later years of
his life, in connection with the centennary anniversaries of the
events involved. However, the "compact" was a matter of family
tradition, based upon a collection of letters and notes handed down
from father to son. Jefferson's reasons for keeping the matter secret,
as Dr. Peck explains, were, first, to prevent giving the impression
that he was seeking his own interests in the territories, and, second,
to avoid arousing the opposition of his southern friends who desired
the extension of slavery. Lemen, on the other hand, did not wish to
have it thought that his actions were controlled by political
considerations, or subject {p.23} to the will of another. Moreover,
when he learned that Jefferson was regarded as "an unbeliever," he is
said to have wept bitterly lest it should be thought that, in his work
for the church and humanity, he had been influenced by an "infidel";
and, sometime before his death, he exacted a promise of his sons and
the few friends who were acquainted with the nature of his compact
with Jefferson that they would not make it known while he lived.[30]
Under the influence of this feeling on the part of their father, the
family kept the facts to themselves and a few confidential friends
until after the lapse of a century, when the time came to commemorate
the achievements of their ancestor.
How much of the current tradition is fact and how much fiction is hard
to determine, as so little of the original documentary material is now
available. The collection of materials herewith presented consists of
what purport to be authentic copies of the original documents in
question. They are put in this form in the belief that their
significance warrants it, and in the hope that their publication may
elicit further light on the subject. These materials consist of three
sorts, viz.; a transcript of the Diary of James Lemen, Sr., a
manuscript History of the confidential relations of Lemen and
Jefferson, prepared by Rev. John M. Peck, and a series of letters from
various public men to Rev. James Lemen, Jr. The Diary and manuscript
"History" were located by the compiler of this collection among the
papers of the late Dr. Edward B. Lemen, of Alton, Illinois. These
documents are now in the possession of his son-in-law, Mr. Wykoff, who
keeps them in his bank vault. The collection of letters was published
at various times by Mr. Joseph B. Lemen, of Collinsville, Illinois, in
_The Belleville Advocate_, of Belleville, Illinois. The Diary is a
transcript of the original, attested by Rev. James Lemen, Jr. The
"History" is a brief sketch, in two chapters, prepared from the
original documents by Dr. Peck while he was pastor of the Bethel
Church, in June, 1851, and written at his dictation by the hand of an
assistant, as the document itself expressly states. Mr. Joseph Lemen,
who is responsible for the letters, is the son of Rev. James Lemen,
Jr., and one of the editors of the Lemen Family History. The editor of
_The Belleville Advocate_ states that Mr. Lemen has contributed to
various metropolitan newspapers in the political campaigns of his
party, from those of Lincoln to those of McKinley.[31] He also {p.24}
contributed extended sketches of the Baptist churches of St. Clair
county for one of the early histories of that county. He took an
active part in promoting the movement to commemorate his grandfather,
James Lemen, Sr., in connection with the centennary anniversaries of
the churches founded at New Design and Quentin Creek (Bethel).
The originals of these materials are said to have composed part of a
collection of letters and documents known as the "Lemen Family Notes,"
which has aroused considerable interest and inquiry among historians
throughout the country. The history of this collection is somewhat
uncertain. It was begun by James Lemen, Sr., whose diary, containing
his "Yorktown Notes" and other memoranda, is perhaps its most
interesting survival. While residing in the station fort on the
Mississippi Bottom during the Indian troubles of his early years in
the Illinois country, he made a rude walnut chest in which to keep his
books and papers. This chest, which long continued to be used as the
depository of the family papers, is still preserved, in the Illinois
Baptist Historical Collection, at the Carnegie Library, Alton,
Illinois. It is said that Abraham Lincoln once borrowed it from Rev.
James Lemen, Jr., for the sake of its historical associations, and
used it for a week as a receptacle for his own papers. Upon the death
of the elder Lemen the family notes and papers passed to James, Jr.,
who added to it many letters from public men of his wide circle of
acquaintance.
As the older portions of the collection were being worn and lost, by
loaning them to relatives and friends, copies were made of all the
more important documents, and the remaining originals were then placed
in the hands of Dr. J. M. Peck, who was at the time pastor of the
Bethel Church, to be deposited in the private safe of a friend of his
in St. Louis. As the slavery question was then (1851) at white heat,
it is not surprising that Dr. Peck advised the family to carefully
preserve all the facts and documents relating to their father's
anti-slavery efforts "until some future time," lest their premature
publication should disturb the peace of his church. As late as 1857 he
writes of "that dangerous element in many of the old letters bearing
on the anti-slavery contest of 1818," and adds, "With some of those
interested in that contest, in fifty years from this time, the
publication of these letters would create trouble between the
descendants of many of our old pioneer families."[6]