Editor's Note

APPROACHING THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY of our independence provides excellent opportunities to consider where we've been, where we are, and what lies ahead. All three have a common measure: the words above scratched on parchment with a quill pen during a Philadelphia summer in 1776. Reading seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke's conception of “inalienable rights” reveals one major difference. While Locke ended his list with “property,” Jefferson substituted “the pursuit of happiness.” It made all the difference. The Virginian controlled much “property,” including the bodies and labor of enslaved people, and avoided Locke's term, instead envisioning a higher, more expansive meaning. His phrase sets the standard measuring the United States of America. Equality. Inalienable Rights. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Ideas to inspire future generations and grow a nation.Abraham Lincoln recognized the document enlivens the American spirit, making it an export feared by monarchs and dictators, a beacon guiding us toward our better natures, in short, our essence. Stephen A. Douglas and most politicians of the 1850s and 1860s instead pointed to the Constitution, an admirable and important document, yet one that attempts to reduce a grand, ennobling, electric idea to simple clauses and categories.As our fellow Illinoisan Lincoln asserted, if we never lose sight of that paragraph, we remain “a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”This Journal issue recognizes the approaching anniversary of the Continental Congress's ratification of the Declaration of Independence by contemplating the people, events, successes, tragedies, and struggles contributed by Illinois to realization of Jefferson's vision and Lincoln's instinctive grasp of its power.Twenty-five essays, diverse in topic, and not intended to represent a “history” of Illinois over the past 250 years. These are snapshots of our past revealing both unknown and familiar characters and events. Our hope is that readers read more about these topics, these people, their challenges, and triumphs—all springing from the rich prairie soil.A little bit of “inside baseball,” as the phrase goes. William “Bill” Furry, executive director of the Illinois State Historical Society, suggested a few essays for this Journal reflecting on the anniversary. I thought that we might find four or five authors to contribute their thoughts. But as more authors volunteered, the topics expanded into the familiar and obscure, gradually creating more than eighty pages of text.Within these pages you'll meet Minnie Vautrin, who grew up in Secor, a tiny village between Bloomington and Peoria, who saved thousands of Chinese lives during the Rape of Nanking and today is a national hero in the Republic of China. Or Governor John Peter Altgeld and his ties to the immigration issues of his times and ours. Our old friends Douglas and Lincoln return. Chicago's original street design, its stockyards, the 1934 World's Fair, agriculture, labor, coal mining, removal of Indigenous peoples, a University of Illinois student now under consideration for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church, public education, a courageous group of early nineteenth-century free Black Illinoisans fighting for Jefferson's promised “equality,” women fighting for the same, the Civil War, Jane Addams, artists, and musicians—all these and others reveal our “wondrous story.”This issue also contains book reviews assembled by that department's editor, Kelly O'Conner, with the help of our invaluable reviewers.Michael Wiant of Petersburg, director emeritus of the Illinois State Museum–Dickson Mounds, joins our editorial advisory board this year. A recognized expert on Indigenous Peoples, he brings a new perspective to the board. Michael is currently authoring a manuscript about an 8,500-year-old settlement at the Koster site in Greene County, Illinois.Kelly, Tim, and I hope you enjoy this issue. Let us know your thoughts.