, chap, xii.;
Hinsdale, Old Northwest, chap, xviii.] and, after a struggle between
the southern slavery and antislavery elements by which the state had
been settled, Indiana entered the Union in 1816 as a free state,
under an agreement not to violate the Ordinance of 1787.
Illinois, on her admission in 1818, also guaranteed the provisions
of the Ordinance of 1787, and, not without a contest, included in
her constitution an article preventing the introduction of slavery,
but so worded that the system of indenture of Negro servants was
continued in a modified form. The issue of slavery still continued
to influence Illinois elections, and, as the inhabitants saw well-
to-do planters pass with their slaves across the state to recruit
the property and population of Missouri, a movement (1823-1824) in
favor of revising their constitution so as to admit slavery required
the most vigorous opposition to hold the state to freedom. The
leader of the antislavery forces in Illinois was a Virginian,
Governor Coles (once private secretary to President Madison), who
had migrated to free his slaves after he became convinced that it
was hopeless to make the fight which Jefferson advised him to carry
on in favor of gradual emancipation in his native state.
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