Senate Career
Illinois quickly proceeded along the steps to statehood. Its constitution was finished in August 1818; elections were held in September; and in October, the first General Assembly met in Kaskaskia. On October 6, Ninian Edwards stepped down, and Shadrach Bond was inaugurated as Illinois' first governor. The following day the new state legislature voted for Illinois' two members of the U.S. Senate. Edwards was quickly chosen on the first ballot; his rival Thomas was only elected after the fourth. Edwards and Thomas then drew straws to determine their respective terms: Thomas was placed in Class II of the Senate and could serve until 1823, while Edwards was placed in Class III and had to face reelection in February 1819. Edwards and Thomas still had to wait for Congress to formally ratify Illinois' constitution and admission to the Union, which it did on November 25. On December 3 the two Senators were finally seated, leaving Edwards with a mere three months in his first term.
Edwards' re-election was more difficult. In four months he had lost the temporary support of Thomas' allies in the General Assembly who had voted for him in 1818. He narrowly defeated Thomas partisan Michael Jones by a vote of 23–19. This may have been due to the influence of the powerful Secretary of State Elias Kane, a Thomas ally.
Like most members of Congress during the Era of Good Feelings, Senator Edwards sat as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. As his second term drew on, he joined the Adams-Clay faction that would develop into the National Republicans after Edwards left office. Edwards voted for the Missouri Compromise in 1820, a bill that Thomas sponsored. He voted against a law reducing prices for federal land, which made both Edwards and Representative Daniel Pope Cook targets of criticism at home. On May 6, 1821, Cook married Edwards' daughter Julia.
Ninian Edwards caused trouble for himself when he wrote several articles in the Washington Republican under the pseudonym "A.B." that attacked U.S. Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford. Edwards alleged that Crawford had known of the impending failure of Illinois' Bank of Edwardsville in 1821, but had not withdrawn federal money from it. Edwards found that none of Crawford's rivals were willing to support his charges, and he was unable to produce corroborating evidence. He resigned his Senate seat on March 4, 1824, to take a job he wanted as the USA's first Minister to Mexico. While en route to his new position, Edwards was called back to Washington to testify before a special House committee concerning the "A.B. Plot". Unable to substantiate his claims, Edwards resigned his diplomatic post, to be replaced by Joel Roberts Poinsett.
Back in Illinois, Edwards settled in Belleville, a town whose site he had once owned before selling off its lots at a profit.
Read more about this topic: Ninian Edwards
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