[Non-Sequitur]

... how you could consider it either mysterious or missing is beyond me.

I'm just considering the source.

A conspiracy to keep free blacks from living in Illinois and to severely penalize those few who did make it there anyway? Yeah. Pretty much.

Obviously they weren't very good at it, given the growth in the black population. Maybe they should have talked to the states that were more successful at it?

[GOPcapitalist]

I'm just considering the source.

So you distrust the University of Illinois and the Illinois State Archives on matters of Illinois history.

Obviously they weren't very good at it, given the growth in the black population.

In 1840 there were 3,500 free blacks out of a population just under 500,000. That means blacks were 0.7% of the Illinois population.

In 1860 there were 7,600 blacks out of a population of over 1.7 million. That means blacks were 0.4% of the Illinois population.

So the black population as a percentage of the whole in Illinois actually went DOWN between 1840 and 1860 by almost half at the same time when the white population went up. So yeah, I'd say they were pretty successful at accomplishing what they wanted.