Every December, Illinoisans celebrate the commonwealth’s admission to the Union as the 21st state in 1818. Well, some do. Actually, hardly any do. Most Illinoisans seem reconciled to their membership in the commonwealth but seldom proud of it; a not insignificant number of downstaters hereabouts daydream about secession that might free them of that yoke and allow them to be reborn as Hoosiers. They must feel about Nathanial Pope the way white Georgians feel about Lincoln.
If they’ve heard the name of Nathaniel Pope at all. He was the portly Kentuckian who more than anyone was responsible for creating the modern, cosmopolitan, industrial Illinois the rest of us know and some of us love. Illinois was carved from the old Northwest Territory; Pope was the legislative delegate to Congress who negotiated the terms of admission, including, crucially, the borders of the new state.
Congress had suggested that the northern border of the new state extend west from the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Pope hadn’t forgotten that French explorers as early as the 1670s had realized that a canal could easily link Lake Michigan at Chicago with the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers and ultimately the Mississippi and the world. Pope thus amended the statehood legislation in part to shift that border north to the 42° 30’ parallel. That gave Illinois 43 miles of shoreline, including the spot where the Chicago River dribbled into the lake. As a result, most of what we know as northern Illinois was spared becoming southern Wisconsin.
When that canal was eventually built it made Chicago and Chicago made Illinois. But just as important to Pope as making Illinois an important state was keeping it free. Even in 1818 the smell of rebellion was in the air. As Gov. Thomas Ford would later explain, “If a large portion of [Illinois] could be made dependent upon the commerce and navigation of the great northern lakes connected as they are with the eastern States a rival interest would be created to check the wish for a western and southern [pro-slavery] confederacy. To accomplish this object effectually, it was not only necessary to give to Illinois . . . a considerable coast on Lake Michigan, with a country back of it sufficiently extensive to contain a population capable of exercising a decided influence upon the councils of the State.”
It probably doesn’t need to be pointed out that among those who wished for a pro-slavery western and southern confederacy were the many downstaters who hailed from the South, or that the people capable of exercising a decided influence upon Illinois’ new government were the pro-Union emigrants likely to pour into the enlarged Illinois from the east. By giving Illinois Chicago and its hinterland, Pope gave Illinois to the North – and Lincoln to the nation.
Often dismissed as a sleazy bit of Illinois-style politics, Pope’s triumph in Washington was in fact well-earned; Illinois College historian James E. Davis judged delegate Pope as “politically astute, focused and tireless.” No one in Congress was bought off or bullied to pass Pope’s amended statehood law, nor did Pope’s actions pervert the aims of Congress regarding the development of the Northwest Territory. Yes, he persuaded the relevant congressional powers to shift the boundary; so did Indiana when it petitioned for statehood and for the same reason.
Pope’s performance came closer to statecraft than mere politics. Might he be thought of as Illinois’ George Washington perhaps? (Historian Robert Howard thought he even looked like Washington.) Like Washington, Pope’s ambition was for Illinois, not himself. Pope was satisfied to spend the rest of a quiet life on the federal bench and never entered politics save for an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 1824.
Perhaps for that reason Pope remains little known. The bookshelves groan under the weight of books about has-beens and never-shoulda-beens in Illinois politics and government, but we have no full-length scholarly biographyof Pope. In spite of the fact that, as Howard put it, “few men have achieved as much for Illinois as Pope did,” his memory is honored by being attached to one of the state’s poorest and remotest counties.
A statue of Judge Pope in the Statehouse seems not enough of a tribute as it would put him in company of so many smaller men. Considering that Chicago wouldn’t be in Illinois had it not been for Pope, the state’s wise men might have named the State of Illinois’ new main office building in downtown Chicago after Pope rather than for a careerist pol whose achievement was to shorten lines to get a driver’s license by 10 minutes. Alas, Illinois often hasn’t been able to distinguish its great citizens from its merely successful ones.
Mr. Krohe is the author of the award-winning Corn Kings & One-Horse Thieves: A Plain-spoken History of Mid-Illinois, a perfect holiday gift for people sick of the present.
This article appears in December 18-24, 2025.
