Tag: Capitol building (Springfield IL)

Wikipedia says: The Old State Capitol State Historic Site, in Springfield, Illinois, is the fifth capitol building built for the U.S. state of Illinois. It was built in the Greek Revival style in 1837–1840, and served as the state house from 1840 to 1876. It is the site of candidacy announcements by Abraham Lincoln in 1858 and Barack Obama in 2007. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, primarily for its association with Lincoln and his political rival Stephen Douglas.

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 with the goal of moving the 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, designed by local architect John Francis Rague and 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. As a lawyer, he pleaded cases before the state supreme court in this building (1841–60). In the Illinois House chamber, Lincoln made his House Divided speech in June 1858, announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. It was to the same chamber, in May 1865, that his body was returned to lay in state, arriving from Washington, D.C., prior to final burial in Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery.