408 
Indiana U niv ersity 
Jeffersonian Democracy represented the prevailing politics 
of this section. Territorial days in Ohio had witnessed con- 
flicts between a Federalist governor and the followers of Jeffer- 
son, and there had been significant differences in the ideas and 
practices of the New Englanders and the Pennsylvania and 
southern frontiersmen, but it was the Republicans who urged 
statehood, made a democratic constitution, organized the new 
state government, and continued to control it for over two 
decades. The voting population, either from conviction or 
expediency, was Republican, and altho a number of Federalists 
were elected to oflice, as a party they were never a factor 
of importance in the state. 
The noise of battle between Federalists and Republicans 
never reached Indiana and Illinois.^ Until the late twenties 
politics was factional and local.^ Practically everyone in 
Indiana in 1816 was a Republican and for Monroe; Federalists 
were held in contempt, and no one would admit being one. 
The followings of James Noble, Jonathan Jennings, and Wil- 
liam Hendricks had all been represented in the constitutional 
convention, and in the first election the state and national 
offices were distributed among the leaders. Early state 
politics centered around the policy of the national government 
on public lands and internal improvements. 
The factional and personal strife of the territorial period 
carried over into the early years of statehood in Illinois. 
Whatever issues there were, centered around or were created 
by the leaders of the Ninian Edwards or McLean-Kane- 
Thomas factions. The apparent truce which settled all the 
important leaders into the various offices of state and Con- 
gress did not last long, for the rivalry of the two factions was 
soon revived, and lasted with variations until the opposition to 
the Democrats took form in the Whig party in 1834.^ 
The Missouri question in 1819-1820 brought up the slavery 
question in the Northwest and for a time served to connect 
1 Thomas Ford, History of Illinois from its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 18^7 
(Chicago, 1854), 74; Adam A. Leonard, “Personal Polities in Indiana, 1816-1840”, Indiana 
Magazine of History, XIX, 1. 
2 Theodore Calvin Pease, Illinois Election Returns to 18^8, Illinois State Historical 
Collections, XVIII, Introduction, xix ; Charles Manfred Thompson, Illinois Whigs before 
18A6, University of Illinois Studies in Social Science (LUbana, 1915), IV, 9. 
3 Ninian W. Edwards, History of Illinois from 1778 to 1833 and Life and Times oj 
Ninian Edtuards (Springfield, 111., 1870) contains many of the Edwards letters. E.B. 
Washburne (Ed.), The Papers of Ninian Edivards, and Ford, History of Illinois throw 
further light on this confusing period. 
