Edward Coles

Edward Coles (December 15, 1786 – July 7, 1868) was an American planter and politician, elected as the second Governor of Illinois (1822 to 1826). From an old Virginia family, Coles as a young man was a neighbor and associate of presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, as well as, secretary to President James Madison from 1810 to 1815. An anti-slavery advocate throughout his adult life, Coles inherited a plantation and slaves but eventually left Virginia for the Illinois Territory to set his slaves free. He manumitted 19 slaves in 1819 and acquired land for them. In Illinois, he first participated in a campaign to block extending existing slavery in the new state, and then two years later at his inauguration as Governor, he called for the end of slavery in Illinois altogether, which was later achieved. Coles corresponded with and advised both Jefferson and Madison to free their slaves, and publicly support abolition. In his final years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he helped shape early historians' views of the presidents' republican ideals. Early life and education Coles was born on December 15, 1786, at Enniscorthy, a plantation in central Virginia's Albemarle County on the Hardware River, a tributary of the James River. He was the youngest male among ten surviving children of John Coles (1745–1808) and Rebecca Tucker (1750–1826). Young Coles' earliest teachers were prominent lawyer Wilson Cary Nicholas and Mr. (probably Rev.) White who lived by Dyer's Store. After a term at Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, Coles transferred to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While at William and Mary, Coles was strongly influenced by the enlightenment ideals taught by the Rt. Rev. James Madison (first Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia and President of the College). The teacher and cleric considered slavery morally indefensible, but a problem without a clear solution. Young Coles determined not to be a slaveholder and not to live where slavery was accepted. However, he kept these views from his father, whose illness (and that of his elder brother) caused Coles to end his formal education in the summer of 1807, for fear that his father would substitute other property for slaves when writing his last will and testament.