Illinois next knocked at the door of the Union. The same conditions applied to her as to Indiana; a strict construction of the ordinance would deprive her of an opening on the lake. The Illinois delegate who argued this matter in Congress was shrewd; he contended that his State must become intimately connected with the growing commerce of the northern lakes, else she would be led, from her commercial relations upon the south-flowing Mississippi and Ohio rivers, to join a Southern confederacy in case the Union should be broken up. This was in 1818, and shows how early in our history there had come to be, in the minds of some far-seeing men, a fear that the growing power of slavery might some time lead to secession. The argument prevailed in Congress, and there was voted to Illinois a strip of territory sixty-one miles wide, lying north of the east-and-west line. Thus again was the region later to be called Wisconsin deprived of a large and valuable tract. When Wisconsin Territory was created, there was a great deal of indignation expressed by some of her people, at being deprived of this wide belt of country embracing 8500 square miles of exceedingly fertile soil, numerous river and lake ports, many miles of fine water power, and the sites of Chicago, Rockford, Freeport, Galena, Oregon, Dixon, and numerous other prosperous cities. An attempt was made in 1836, at the time the Territory was established, to secure for Wisconsin's benefit the old east-and-west line, as its rightful southern boundary. But Congress declined to grant this request. Three years later, the Wisconsin Territorial legislature declared that "a large and valuable tract of country is now held by the State of Illinois, contrary to the manifest right and consent of the people of this Territory." The inhabitants of the district in northern Illinois which was claimed by Wisconsin, were invited by these resolutions to express their opinion on the matter. Public meetings were consequently held in several of the Illinois towns interested; and resolutions were adopted, declaring in favor of the Wisconsin claim. The movement culminated in a convention at Rockford (July 6, 1839), attended by delegates from nine of the fourteen Illinois counties involved. This convention recommended the counties to elect delegates to a convention to be held in Madison, "for the purpose of adopting such lawful and constitutional measures as may seem to be necessary and proper for the early adjustment of the southern boundary." Curiously enough, the weight of public sentiment in Wisconsin itself did not favor the movement. At a large meeting held in Green Bay, the following April, the people of that section passed resolutions "viewing the resolutions of the legislature with concern and regret," and asking that they be rescinded. With this, popular agitation ceased for the time; and in the following year the legislature promptly defeated a proposition for the renewal of the question.