THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY The name and its Indians who lived in the Illinois country called themselves the "Illini," meaning "men." The name Illinois, derived from this Indian name, was first applied to the tribe, then to the region in which the Illini lived. The region first known as the Illinois country was of indefinite boundaries but included, in general, the present state of Illinois and portions of Indiana and Wisconsin.
When, in 1809, Illinois Territory was organized as a separate political unit, the name Illinois became applicable to a definite geographic region, including the present states of Illinois and Wisconsin and portions of Minnesota and Michigan.
In 1818, when Illinois State was carved out of Illinois Ter ritory, the northern boundary of the Illinois country was shifted from the Canadian line to the parallel of 42° 30' N. lat., although the Enabling Act gave the constitutional convention specific permission to include all of Illinois Territory within the limits of the state. Thus, with the admission of Illinois, the twenty-first state, into the Union on December 3, 1818, the name Illinois acquired definite and final meaning.
It is interesting to note that Congress fixed the name Illinois in the act establishing Illinois Territory in 1809, while in the Enabling Act of 1818 "the inhabitants of the territory of Illi nois are authorized to form for themselves a Constitution and State government, and to assume such name as they shall deem proper." The name Illinois, which had been so closely asso ciated with the region for 145 years, was, of course, selected as the name of the new state.
Illinois boundaries of Illinois Territory were those established by the Ordinance of 1787, in which provision was made for three states within the Northwest Territory. The westernmost of these three states was to be bounded on the north by Canada; on the east by the Wabash River and a line running clue north from Vincennes, Indiana, to Canada; on the south by the Ohio River; and on the west by the Mississippi River and a line running from the Mississippi to the Lake of the Woods. These boundaries became those
of Illinois Territory in 1809. The area of this region is two and a half times the area of the state of Illinois, and the popu lation in 1910 was about one and a half times that of Illinois.
Legal state boundaries.—The Ena bling Act passed by Congress, April 18, 1818, marks out the boundary lines of the proposed new state of Illinois as follows: The eastern boundary is the middle of the Wabash River and the Indiana state line to the northwest corner of Indiana. Here the line turns east along the north ern boundary of Indiana to the middle of Lake Michigan; it then turns north along the middle of the lake to 42° 30' N. lat.
The northern boundary ex tends westward from the middle of Lake Michigan along 42° 30' N. lat. to the middle of the Mississippi River. The western bound ary is the middle of the Mis sissippi River to the junction of the Ohio. The southern boundary is along the north west shore of the Ohio River, for the Kentucky boundary along the Ohio had already been established on the north side of the river. It thus happens that the Ohio River and its islands are in Kentucky, not in Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio.
An interesting provision of the Enabling Act follows the description of the state boundaries. It states that the Con stitutional Convention "shall ratify the boundaries aforesaid; otherwise they shall be and remain as now prescribed." Had the Convention taken advantage of this provision, Illinois would have had an area of about 150,000 square miles and a population in 1910 of approximately 8,800,000. Milwaukee, St. Paul, Duluth, Superior, Madison, and other well-known cities of other states would be listed among the cities of Illinois. Its north-south extent would have been 850 miles, a greater length than that of any present state. The state would have ranked first in the Union in many items in which it now takes lower rank.