Elias Kent Kane | |
|---|---|
 | |
| United States Senator fromIllinois | |
| In office March 4, 1825 – December 12, 1835 | |
| Preceded by | John McLean |
| Succeeded by | William Ewing |
| 1st Secretary of State of Illinois | |
| In office 1818–1822 | |
| Governor | Shadrach Bond |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Samuel D. Lockwood |
| Member of theIllinois House of Representatives | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1794-06-07)June 7, 1794 New York City, New York |
| Died | December 12, 1835(1835-12-12) (aged 41) Washington, D.C. |
| Political party | Jacksonian |
Elias Kent Kane (June 7, 1794 – December 12, 1835) was the first Illinois Secretary of State and aU.S. Senator fromIllinois.[1]
He was born inNew York City, to merchant Capt. Elias Kent Kane and Deborah VanSchelluyne ofDutchess County, New York. Young Kane attended public schools, thenYale College, from which he has graduated in the year 1813.
After he studied law and was admitted to the bar, Kane commenced practice inNashville, Tennessee, and then moved toKaskaskia, Illinois in 1814.
He became allied withJesse B. Thomas, a slaveholder who had secured the job of judge of theTerritory of Illinois. Like Judge Thomas and his rivalNinian Edwards, Kane was a delegate to the first stateconstitutional convention in 1818. At the convention, the Thomas/Kane faction unsuccessfully tried to add language permitting slavery in the new state (where it had been forbidden by theNorthwest Ordinance of 1787). However, that proposal was defeated by a faction whose leaders includedBaptistJohn Mason Peck,MethodistPeter Cartwright,QuakerJames Lemen, publisherHooper Warren and future governorEdward Coles.[2][3] Kane claimed ownership of five people as slaves in 1820,[4]
After an unsuccessful 1820 campaign for election to the17th Congress which featured numerous letters in theEdwardsville Spectator concerning slavery,[5][6] and which anti-slavery candidateDaniel Pope Cook won, Kane became Illinois' firstSecretary of State, and served from 1820 to 1824. In that year, Kane led proslavery forces in theIllinois House of Representatives which attempted to call another constitutional convention, but was again defeated by a coalition led by Governor Coles, U.S. Representative Cook and religious leaders of many denominations.[7]However, fellow legislators twice appointed Kane to theUnited States Senate. He served from March 4, 1825, until his death inWashington, D.C., in 1835.
His body was returned to the family farm inRandolph County, Illinois, but due to continued desecration of the family gravesite, he was reinterred in 1984 (a campaign led by local funeral director, Michael McClure) in Evergreen Cemetery in nearby Chester, in a grave adjacent with that of his sometime political opponent and Illinois' first governor,Shadrach Bond. The Kane family gravesite includes that of his wife, the former Frances Pelletier (1799-1851), two children who died young, and four sons. One son, Elias Kent Kane, Jr. (1822-1853), served in the United States Army. One of Kane's daughters married Illinois governorWilliam H. Bissell, a vocal opponent of slavery. Kane's father (of the same name) is buried inCongressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.,[8] having survived this son by five years and secured his namesake grandson's admission to West Point.
On January 16, 1836, the Illinois legislature formed a new county,Kane, and named it to honor the recently deceased Senator, Elias Kent Kane.[9][10]
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Office created | Illinois Secretary of State 1818-1822 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 3) from Illinois 1825–1835 Served alongside:Jesse B. Thomas,John McLean,David J. Baker,John M. Robinson | Succeeded by |
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| Class 2 |  | |
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| Class 3 | ||
| Public Lands (1816–1921) |  | |
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| Public Lands and Surveys (1921–1947) | ||
| Interior and Insular Affairs (1947–1977) | ||
| Energy and Natural Resources (1977–) | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
