One evidence of the hostility of many of the early inhabitants and especially of some who were active in politics toward organized religion, as well as the tendency of ministers of that period to participate in politics, is found in the fact that Illinois narrowly escaped having in her Constitution a provision disqualifying all ministers to hold office in the State. When the Constitutional Convention assembled at Kaskaskia this question was earnestly discussed, and the controversy was waged also in the columns of the _Western Intelligencer_, which was published in Kaskaskia from 1806 to 1814. A writer who signed himself "A Foe to Religious Tyranny" roundly denounced the political sermons of certain of the ministers, and charged that they intended to disqualify any citizens for office excepting "professors of religion." When the first draft of the Constitution was submitted in August, 1818, Article II, Section 26, read: "Whereas the ministers of the gospel are by their profession dedicated to God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of their function: Therefore, no minister of the gospel or priest of any denomination whatever, shall be eligible to a seat in either house of the Legislature." This article was warmly commended by a writer in the _Intelligencer_ under date of August 12, 1818, who commended the framers of the Constitution for their provision "to exempt ministers of the gospel from the servile and arduous drudgery of legislation, and of electioneering to procure themselves seats in the Legislature," but urged the convention to extend the provision so as to disqualify ministers from holding any office whatever. A number of members of the Constitutional Convention favored this drastic proscription. On the first reading the proposed article was approved; but it was later reconsidered and voted down. Ministers thus were left on a plane with other citizens as regarded the holding of public office; and their candidacy for the Legislature especially was not infrequent; indeed, one of the writers who engaged in this controversy considered the appalling possibility that the Constitutional Convention might have been composed entirely of ministers, and that some future session of the Legislature might find them in complete control. There never was any danger that ministers would make up a controlling faction in the Illinois Legislature; but they were not a negligible element in the early political life of the State. Lincoln soon came into the political atmosphere which was thus affected by religious controversy, and it had an influence upon him. His most formidable and persistent opponent, until he met Douglas, was a Methodist preacher, the redoubtable Peter Cartwright who defeated him in a contest for the Legislature and whom he defeated in a race for Congress. Lincoln was quite familiar with religion in its relation to politics in early Illinois.