A brawl between two of Springfield’s leading citizens enlivened the 1840 election that converted the community from a town to a city.
The fight was over who should be allowed to vote in the referendum. The combatants were Dr. Alexander Shields (1797-1882), one of Springfield’s first physicians, and state Sen. Edward Dickinson Baker (1811-1861), a close friend of Abraham Lincoln.
Dr. Alexander Shields, circa 1881 (History of Sangamon County, Illinois, Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships)
The General Assembly approved a city charter for Springfield in February 1840, but local voters also had to adopt the charter before it took effect. The legislature’s measure, however, included a provision allowing only U.S. citizens to vote in city elections. At the time, according to Shields, the custom was that anyone, citizen or not, who had been in the U.S. for six months or more was allowed to vote, “even for President of the United States.” (Of course, Shields was referring only to white men; it would be decades before women and African-Americans won their voting rights.)
Baker, a state senator at the time, supported the vote limitation – because, Shields believed, local voters otherwise would have rejected the charter. That outraged Shields on the behalf of his two brothers-in-law, who were British immigrants but not yet citizens and thus could not have voted. Shields confronted Baker on April 6, 1840, the day the charter referendum took place.
Shields wrote about their tussle decades later for the Old Settlers Society of Sangamon County. The reminiscence was published in the 1881 History of Sangamon County, Illinois, Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships.
Here is Shields’ story of the fight.
(Baker), being an Englishman, from the same country where two of my brothers-in-law came from, excluded them from voting. I, boiling over with indignation at the idea of his excluding his own countrymen from voting, declared that I would challenge his vote. He, being aware of the fact, came on the day of election prepared with his father’s naturalized (sic) papers, which naturalized him, he being a minor at the time.
When he came to vote, I challenged it, and that gave rise to a good deal of insulting language. At length, he used an expression that was not true, and I called him a liar.
That ended the war of words. He then requested me to go out on the street, and he would “lick” me as soon as he polled his vote. I went out and waited for him. When he came, he quietly asked what I said at the polls. I said he was a liar.
Expecting him to strike with his right, he gave me a lick with his left fist, on the side of my head, that knocked me wild; then the “ball” opened. I tried for some time to hit him, but he fended off so well that I was unable to touch him.
His fist was soft; my head was hard, and by the time he raised some five or six knots, his fist was useless. Unable to hit him with my fist, I changed my tactics and commenced kicking. After two or three kicks he caught my foot and hoisted me over; while falling I caught him and drew him down upon me, and then reached to get him by the throat, and my thumb landed in his eye. I concluded to let it remain there.
The Democrats thought I might “fight it out on this line if it took all summer,” but the Whigs thought differently and pulled us apart, and that pulled my thumb out of his eye. This affair closed up by each of us paying fifteen dollars for fracturing the law.
I can justly say that Colonel Baker was a most eloquent and formidable political opponent, and three or four months after, when our passions cooled down, we shook hands and made friends, and then I came to the conclusion we had both been a pair of great fools.
Edward Baker, 1850 (Wikipedia)
Voters adopted the new city charter by a vote of 226-121. Springfield’s first slate of city officials, including Benjamin Clements as mayor, was elected two weeks later.
Edward Dickinson Baker was so close to Abraham and Mary Lincoln that they named their second son after him. Sadly, Edward Baker Lincoln died at age 3.
In 1846, Baker resigned as a member of the U.S. House to raise a regiment to fight in the Mexican War, which explains why Shields refers to him as “Colonel Baker” in this memoir. In the 1850s, Baker moved to San Francisco and then to Oregon, where he was elected a U.S. senator. He resigned from Congress again at the outbreak of the Civil War in order to organize and command the 71st Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. Baker was killed during the Battle of Balls Bluff, Va., on Oct. 21, 1861.
Alexander Shields arrived in Springfield in 1835 and remained a central Illinois resident the rest of his life. A lifelong Democrat and outspoken supporter of Stephen Douglas, Shields nonetheless supported Lincoln for president in 1860.
It appeared to me … that it was impossible to elect Douglas, and when Lincoln was nominated, I then placed my hope in his election to save the Union and bid a long farewell to the Democratic party. …
It is an old saying that “wise men change, but fools and idiots never change.” If a man discovers that he is in error, it is his right, it is his duty to change; but if a man changes through sordid, selfish motives, he is dishonest and corrupt.
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