Edward Coles

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Edward Coles (December 15, 1786 – July 7, 1868) was governor of Illinois, serving from 1822 to 1826. He was born in 1786 in Albermarle County, Virginia and died in 1868 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His brother-in-law was John Rutherford, who served as governor of Virginia.

Coles County, Illinois was named after him. Coles' studies at the College of William & Mary convinced him that slavery was wrong. He sought for many years to find a way to free the slaves he inherited from his father, one of the wealthiest men in what was then the western frontier of Virginia. Virginia banned newly-freed slaves from living in the state, and Coles' early explorations of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky as places to settle his slaves were disappointing. A stint as private secretary to President James Madison, as an a special envoy to the Tsar, slowed his efforts to find a place to settle his slaves, but in 1818, he decided Illinois was the place. Unfortunately, he misread the debates he witnessed that year over Illinois' new constitution, and didn't understand the high degree of interest Illinois politicians and business leaders had in legalizing slavery. In 1822, talk of a renewed push to legalize slavery prompted Coles to declare himself a candidate for governor. He won in a tight, four-way race, immediately challenged the state's political elite to eliminate Black Codes and the indenture laws that created de facto slavery. They struck back, with a call for a referendum, the first and arguably only such vote in American history. Coles' leadership defeated the pro-slavery effort in the 1824 vote. His later efforts at political office failed,