It was a relatively large division,
whose affairs were managed by elective officers, mainly a board
of commissioners. The New Englanders, on the other hand, had
grown up under the town-meeting system and clung to the notion
that an indispensable feature of democratic local government is
the periodic assembling of the citizens of a community for
legislative, fiscal, and electoral purposes. The Illinois
constitution of 1818 was made by Southerners, and naturally it
provided for the county system. But protest from the "Yankee"
elements became so strong that in the new constitution of 1848
provision was made for township organization wherever the people
of a county wanted it; and this form of government, at first
prevalent only in the northern counties, is now found in most of
the central and southern counties as well.
The most deeply and continuously dividing issue in the Northwest,
as in the nation, at large, was negro slavery. Although written
by Southern men, the Ordinance of 1787 stipulated that there
should be "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said
territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted.
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