compliance with the revenue law of 1898 being $200,000,000, while
that for the rest of the state was only $4,000,000. Among other
sources of revenue are an inheritance tax, which yields approximately
$1,000,000 a year, and 7% of the annual gross earnings of the
Illinois Central railway, given in return for the state aid in the
construction of the road. The constitution prohibits the state from
lending its credit or making appropriations in aid of any corporation,
association or individual, and from constructing internal improvements,
and the counties, townships, and other political units cannot
incur indebtedness in excess of 5% of their assessed property
valuation. The legislature may not contract a debt of more than
$250,000 except to suppress treason, war or invasion, and no
legislative appropriation may extend longer than the succeeding
legislature. General banking laws must be submitted to the people
for ratification.
History.—Illinois is the French form of Iliniwek, the name of a confederacy of Algonquian tribes. The first exploration by Europeans was that of the French. In 1659 Pierre Radisson and Medard Chouart des Groseilliers seem to have reached the upper Mississippi. It is certain that in 1673 part of the region known as the Illinois country was explored to some extent by two Frenchmen, Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit father. Marquette, under orders to begin a mission to the Indians, who were known to the French by their visits to the French settlements in the Lake Superior region, and Joliet, who acted under orders of Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, ascended the Fox river, crossed the portage between it and the Wisconsin river, and followed that stream to the Mississippi, which they descended to a point below the mouth of the Arkansas. On their return journey they ascended the Illinois river as far as Lake Peoria; they then crossed the portage to Lake Michigan, and in 1675 Marquette founded a mission at the Indian town of Kaskaskia, near the present Utica, Ill. In 1679 the explorer La Salle, desiring to find the mouth of the Mississippi and to extend the domain of France in America, ascended the St Joseph river, crossed the portage separating it from the Kankakee, which he descended to the Illinois, and built in the neighbourhood of Lake Peoria a fort which he called Fort Crevecœur. The vicissitudes of the expedition, the necessity for him to return to Canada for tools to construct a large river-boat, and opposition in Canada to his plans, prevented him from reaching the mouth of the Illinois until the 6th of February 1682. After such preliminary explorations, the French made permanent settlements, which had their origin in the missions of the Jesuits and the bartering posts of the French traders. Chief of these were Kaskaskia, established near the mouth of the Kaskaskia river, about 1720; Cahokia, a little below the mouth of the Missouri river, founded at about the same time; and Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi between Cahokia and Kaskaskia, founded in 1720 to be a link in a chain of fortifications intended to extend from the St Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. A monument of the labours of the missionaries is a manuscript dictionary (c. 1720) of the language of the Illinois, with catechism and prayers, probably the work of Father Le Boulanger.
In 1712 the Illinois river was made the N. boundary of the French province of Louisiana, which was granted to Antoine Crozat (1655–1738), and in 1721 the seventh civil and military district of that province was named Illinois, which included more than one-half of the present state, the country between the Arkansas river and the line 43° N. lat., as well as the country between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi; but in 1723 the region around the Wabash river was formed into a separate district. The trade of the Illinois country was now diverted to the settlements in the lower Mississippi river, but the French, although they were successful in gaining the confidence and friendship of the Indians, failed to develop the resources of the country. By the treaty of Paris, 1763, France ceded to Great Britain her claims to the country between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, but on account of the resistance of Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas who drew into conspiracy most of the tribes between the Ottawa river and the lower Mississippi, the English were not able to take possession of the country until 1765, when the French flag was finally lowered at Fort Chartres.
The policy of the British government was not favourable to the economic development of the newly-acquired country, since it was feared that its prosperity might react against the trade and industry of Great Britain. But in 1769 and the succeeding years of English control, this policy was relaxed, and immigration from the seaboard colonies, especially from Virginia, began. In 1771 the people of the Illinois country, through a meeting at Kaskaskia, demanded a form of self-government similar to that of Connecticut. The petition was rejected by General Thomas Gage; and Thomas Legge, earl of Dartmouth (1731–1801), Secretary of State for Plantations and President of the Board of Trade, drew up a plan of government for Illinois in which all officials were appointed by the crown. This, however, was never operative, for in 1774, by the famous Quebec Act, the Illinois country was annexed to the province of Quebec, and at the same time the jurisdiction of the French civil law was recognized. These facts explain the considerable sympathy in Illinois for the colonial cause in the War of Independence. Most of the inhabitants, however, were French, and these were Loyalists. Consequently, the British government withdrew their troops from the Illinois country. The English authorities instigated the Indians to make attacks upon the frontiers of the American colonies, and this led to one of the most important events in the history of the Illinois country, the capture of the British posts of Cahokia and Kaskaskia in 1778, and in the following year of Vincennes (Indiana), by George Rogers Clark (q.v.), who acted under orders of Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia. These conquests had much to do with the securing by the United States of the country W. of the Alleghanies and N. of the Ohio in the treaty of Paris, 1783.
The Virginia House of Delegates, in 1778, extended the civil jurisdiction of Virginia to the north-west, and appointed Captain John Todd (1750–1782), of Kentucky, governor of the entire territory north of the Ohio, organized as “The County of Illinois”; the judges of the courts at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Vincennes, who had been appointed under the British administration, were now chosen by election; but this government was confined to the old French settlements and was entirely inefficient. In 1787, Virginia and the other states having relinquished their claims to the country west of the Alleghanies, the North-West Territory was organized by Congress by the famous Ordinance of 1787. Two years later St Clair county was formed out of the S.W. part of the Illinois country, while the E. portion and the settlements around Vincennes (Indiana) were united into the county of Knox, and in 1795 the S. part of St Clair county was organized into Randolph county, with Kaskaskia as the seat of administration. In 1800 the Illinois country was included in the Territory of Indiana, and in 1809 the W. part of Indiana from Vincennes N. to Canada was organized as the Territory of Illinois; it included, besides the present territory of the state, all of Wisconsin except the N. part of the Green Bay peninsula, a considerable part of Michigan, and all of Minnesota E. of the Mississippi. In 1812, by permission of Congress, a representative assembly was chosen, a Territorial constitution was adopted, and the Territorial delegate in Congress was elected directly by the people.
In 1818 Illinois became a state of the American Union, the Enabling Act fixing the line 42° 30′ as the N. boundary, instead of that provided by the Ordinance of 1787, which passed through the S. bend of Lake Michigan. The reason given for this change was that if the Mississippi and Ohio rivers were the only outlets of Illinois trade, the interests of the state would become identified with those of the southern states; but if an outlet by Lake Michigan were provided, closer relations would be established with the northern and middle states, and so “additional security for the perpetuity of the Union” would be afforded.
Among the first problems of the new state were those relating to lands and Indians. Throughout the Territorial period there was conflict between French and English land claims. In 1804 Congress established land offices at Kaskaskia and Vincennes to examine existing claims and to eliminate conflict with future grants; in 1812 new offices were established at
