“It is sincerely hoped the present legislature will adopt some measure to send home as speedily as possible the legions of office seekers at Springfield whose protracted presence would taint the moral atmosphere of heaven itself,” a reporter for the Illinois Free Trader wrote on Dec. 9, 1842.
Doctor William Fithian from Danville was in Springfield in that long ago winter when the hordes of men filled the capitol city hoping to gain political favors after the legislature began its December session. Fithian was serving as a state senator. He roomed in Springfield during the session and his wife Julia took care of the children in Danville. There was no railroad connecting the two cities and travel was difficult in winter.
Illinois was facing challenges when Thomas Ford defeated Joseph Duncan in the governor’s contest in August 1842. Ford was a Democrat and Duncan a Whig, as was Fithian. The banking system in the state was in financial chaos and the state was facing a spending deficit. Gov. Ford did have the advantage of having a majority in both branches of the legislature to assist him in his leadership.
Doctor Fithian was a staunch Whig but he credited Governor Ford with delivering a “very good” inaugural message. He wrote his friend Amos Williams, “If he should act in conformity with the principles promulgated, it will be well and better for Illinois.” That said, he added from the maneuverings he had observed among some of the elected officials the banks would be “ground fine as ginger in no time.”
The doctor was a stalwart conservative who believed the state was in a downward spiral from excess spending, or as he explained it, borrowing from A to pay B, and so on through the alphabet. Two years earlier he had introduced a bill in the Illinois State Senate to reduce the pay of elected officials and officers of the state by 25 percent. The Senate rebuked Fithian’s bill by refusing to order it to a second reading.
He and the other state legislators occupied the newly erected capitol building in Springfield. The magnificent structure was certainly an improvement over the former building they served in when Vandalia was the capital. Fithian’s friend Abe Lincoln was no longer a member of the legislature. Abe was now a lawyer riding the circuit and Fithian had employed him as his attorney the previous year. The friendship between the two men would last until an assassin’s bullet ended President Lincoln’s life.
Doctor Fithian’s views on the operation of state government in the 1840s reflect many of the same currents that circulate through the system today. The pull and tug of liberal and conservative and the steadying hand of the moderate existed then as now. Fithian engaged in many debates and delivered numerous speeches in the house and senate during his decade in state government. He was a rock hard conservative but was also known to compromise when it benefited his constituents.
Julia also had her challenges while her husband was gone. She took care of the home and their young children as well as the Doctor’s extra horses and a milk cow. There were also chickens to look after. This was not an easy task in winter in what was still nearly a frontier village. She did have help from her husband’s friend Amos Williams.
Life was hard on families on the frontier in that time period. During the decade of the 1840s, Doctor Fithian and Julia lost all five of their children. Julia also passed away in 1849 following the birth of her namesake daughter who also succumbed. It was a decade of grief for the strong woman who did not live to see her 39th birthday.
Those tragedies were all over time’s horizon when Fithian wrote from Springfield in December 1842. He sent his love to Julia, and informed her he was living in comfortable quarters. He also instructed his sons to be good boys. It is well one can not see over time’s horizon.