Emancipation and Slavery in Madison County

Alton Senator Lyman Trumbull was the author of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Another friend of Lincoln, Owen Lovejoy, introduced the final bill to end slavery in the District of Columbia. Despite the fact that Illinois was a Free State, there was still slavery in Illinois. Johnson provides a brief timeline of the progression of slavery in Madison County and a discusses some of the known conductors on the Underground Railroad, especially in Alton.