Writing in 1918, at the time of Illinois's centennial celebration of statehood, one of our great historians, Theodore Calvin Pease, managed to summarize the contentious debate surrounding Illinois's entrance into the union, one that centered around the issue of slavery. Two hundred years later, it may be hard to imagine the “threatening storm” that loomed over the Prairie State in these early years, and it may be especially challenging to imagine how this storm could be related to the issue of slavery. After all, the Illinois we know, one that many Illinois readers have learned about, was a northern state, one we have proudly claimed as morally untainted by slavery. But from February 1823 to August 1824, the young state found itself on the brink of slavery and freedom. While legislators had passed the first state constitution in 1818 deeming Illinois a free state, by 1823 proslavery sentiment in the...
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