THE SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS.
By James E. Babb.
Courts have been maintained by different sovereignties, administering different systems of law, in the territory which now constitutes the State of Illinois.
Though Spain claimed the territory, it never through a judicial tribunal exercised jurisdiction therein.
The claim and jurisdiction of France be came quite well settled and defined. In 1712 Louis XIV. by Letters Patent granted the territory of which Illinois was a part to M. Crozat, "under the name of the Government of Louisiana." Article VII. of the Letters Patent provided that " Our edicts, ordinances, and customs, the usages of the mayoralty and shrievalty of Paris, shall be observed for laws in the said country of Louisiana."
Louisiana during French rule was divided into nine districts. One of these was called Illinois. Each had a governor and a judge. From the decisions of these district judges there was an appeal to a Superior Court, which sat at New Orleans.
In "Early History of Illinois," by Sidney Breese, copies are given from the records of judicial proceedings before magistrates of these courts.
By a treaty concluded between France and England at Paris, Feb. 10, 1763, the jurisdiction of France over this territory ended and that of England began. King George III., Oct. 7, 1763, issued a proclamation providing for English government.
Lieut.-Col. John Wilkins, the British military commandant of the territory, issued a proclamation, Nov. 21, 1768, stating that by order of Gen. Thomas Gage, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America, he was to establish a court of justice in Illinois, for settling all disputes and controversies between man and man, and all claims in relation to property, both real and personal. As military commandant, Colonel Wilkins appointed seven judges, who met and held their first court at Fort Chartres, Dec. 6, 1768. Courts were thereafter held each month.
In Moses' History of Illinois, vol. i. p. 140, it is said that this was " the first British court west of the Alleghanies. Instead of appeasing, it increased the discontent of the French; it was repugnant to all their ideas of justice that the rights of persons and property should be safer in the hands of a panel of miscellaneous tailors and shoemakers, than in those of erudite and dispassionate judges."
In 1778 Col. George Rogers Clark, pursuant to a letter of direction from Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, dated Jan. 2, 1778, captured the British posts in the vast territory of the Northwest, and sent the British Governor of Illinois a prisoner to Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia. Thereupon, in October, 1778, the House of Burgesses of Virginia enacted that all the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia "who are already settled or shall hereafter settle on the western side of the Ohio shall be included in a distinct county which shall be called Illinois County; and the Governor of this Commonwealth, with the advice of the Council, may appoint a County Lieutenant or Commandant-in-Chief in that county, who shall appoint and commission so many deputy commandants, militia and officers and commissaries, as he shall think proper, all of whom shall take the oath of fidelity to this Commonwealth."
John Todd, of Kentucky, having been appointed Lieutenant of Illinois County, issued his proclamation as such at Kaskaskia, June 15. 1779. In the same month a court of civil and criminal jurisdiction was instituted at Post Vincennes, which was composed of
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