Vandalia – Springfield Illinois – Old State Capitols

Vandalia – Springfield Illinois

Old State Capitols

Lincoln leaves for Washington, D.C. from Springfield, Illinois

From 1820 through 1837, the political capital of the young state of Illinois was the small village of Vandalia, Illinois in the south center of the state. On the National Road, Vandalia was initially well-situated to fulfill its governmental role. As northern Illinois opened to settlement in the 1830s, however, public pressure grew for the capital to be relocated to a location closer to the geographic center of the state.

A caucus of nine Illinois lawmakers, including the young Whig Party lawyer Abraham Lincoln, led the effort to have the capital moved to the Sangamon County village of Springfield. Their efforts were successful in 1837, when the Illinois General Assembly passed a law creating a two-year transition period and asking the state to move its capital to Springfield in 1839.

Workers built a state office building, large for the time, on the central square in Springfield in 1837-40. The cost was $240,000, of which the city of Springfield paid $50,000. The structure, constructed of locally-quarried yellow Sugar Creek limestone, contained chambers for both houses of the General Assembly, offices for the Governor of Illinois and other executive officials, and a chamber for the Illinois Supreme Court.

It was in this building that Lincoln served his final term as a state lawmaker in 1840-41. It was here, as a lawyer, that he pleaded cases before the state supreme court in 1841-60. It was here, in the Illinois House chamber, that he made Lincoln’s House Divided Speech in June 1858. And it was to the same chamber, in May 1865, that his body was returned from Washington, D.C. prior to final burial in Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery. (Vandalia, curiously was the site of a 10.000 people rally on the 1991 Clinton /Gore post convention Bus Tour which I attended)

Springfield Illinois

Old State Capitol

Old State Capitol, Springfield Illinois

Abraham Lincoln started Here

Old State Capitol, Springfield Illinois (Lincoln and Obama starting place)

State Capitol, Vandalia Illinois

State Capitol, Vandalia Illinois

Vandalia State House

The Vandalia State House State Historic Site, built in 1836, is the fourth capitol building of the U.S. state of Illinois. It is also the oldest capitol building in Illinois to survive, as the first, second, and third capitol buildings have all disappeared.