Excerpt from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Vol. 2: Illustrated State debt. The State debt, which proved so formidable a burden upon the State of Illinois for a generation, and, for a part of that period, seriously checked its prosperity, was the direct outgrowth of the internal improvement scheme entered upon in 1837. (see Internal Improvement Policy.) At the time this enterprise was under taken the aggregate debt of the State was less than - accumulated within the preceding six years. Two years later (1838) it had increased to over while the total valuation of real and personal property, for the purposes of taxation, was less than and the aggre gate receipts of the State treasury, for the same year, amounted to less than At the same time, the disbursements, for the support of the State Government alone, had grown to more than twice the receipts. This disparity continued until the declining credit of the State forced upon the managers of public affairs an involuntary economy, when the means could no longer be secured for more lavish expenditures. The first bonds issued at the inception of the internal improvement scheme sold at a premium of 5 per cent, but rapidly declined until they were hawked in the markets of New York and London at a dis count, in some cases falling into the hands of brokers who failed before completing their con. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.