Chicago, Wisconsin?-- Part 2: It Was a Slave-Free Thing

That was the way the Illinois Territory was regarded when it was to become a state.

But, then national politics got involved.

Keeping the balance between slave and free states became paramount to both the North and South sections.  Mississippi entered the Union as a slave state in 1817.  The North needed another free state and Illinois seemed to be the likely candidate.

At the time, many of the settlers in the southern part of the state were from Kentucky and Tennessee, slave states..  They tended to support Illinois being a slave state.  But, if Illinois had a port on Lake Michigan, it would develop ties with the north.  Northerners would begin moving to the northern part of Illinois.

So, when Congress voted for statehood for Illinois in 1818, a resolution was attached to move the boundary fifty miles northward.  Wisconsin, of course, was not a state at the time, nor would it have enough residents to become a state until 1848, when it joined the Union.  People there weren't happy, but couldn't do anything about it.

--RoadCheese