In November, 1834, just before the close of his term as Governor, he resigned to become a member of Congress.  In 1837, aided by others, he built the first railroad in the State—­a short line of six miles from his coal mine in the Mississippi bluff to the bank of the river opposite St. Louis.  It was operated by horse power.  He again became a member of the legislature in 1846 and 1852, during the latter term being Speaker of the House.  In 1860, in his seventy-third year, he was an anti-Douglas delegate to the Charleston convention, and received the most distinguished attentions from the Southern delegates.  After the October elections, when it became apparent that Lincoln would be elected, he issued an address advising the support of Douglas.  His sympathies were with the South, though in 1832 he strongly supported President Jackson in the suppression of the South Carolina nullifiers.  He died in Belleville in May, 1865.  Governor Reynolds was a quaint and forceful character.  He was a man of much learning; but in conversation (and he talked much) he rarely rose above the odd Western vernacular, of which he was so complete a master.  He was the author of two books—­one an autobiography, and the other “The Pioneer History of Illinois.”]

Long before the land was surveyed, however, squatters had invaded the country, and tried to force the Indians west of the Mississippi.  Particularly envious were these whites of the lands at the mouth of the Rock River, where the ancient village and burial place of the Sacs stood, and where they came each year to raise corn.  Black Hawk had resisted their encroachments, and many violent acts had been committed on both sides.

Finally, however, the squatters, in spite of the fact that the line of settlement was still fifty miles away, succeeded in evading the real meaning of the treaty and in securing a survey of the desired land at the mouth of the river.  Black Hawk, exasperated and broken-hearted at seeing his village violated, persuaded himself that the village had never been sold—­indeed, that land could not be sold: 

“My reason teaches me,” he wrote, “that land cannot be sold.  The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and cultivate, as far as is necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have the right to the soil, but if they voluntarily leave it, then any other people have a right to settle upon it.  Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away.”

Supported by this theory, conscious that in some way he did not understand he had been wronged, and urged on by White Cloud, the prophet, who ruled a Winnebago village on the Rock River, Black Hawk crossed the Mississippi in 1831, determined to evict the settlers.  A military demonstration drove him back, and he was persuaded to sign a treaty never to return east of the Mississippi.  “I touched the goose quill to the treaty, and was determined to live in peace,”