George Forquer (1794–1837) was a politician who served variously as an

Illinois State Senator The Illinois Senate is the upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, the legislative branch of the government of the State of Illinois in the United States. The body was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. Under th ...

, Illinois' 5th Secretary of State (1825–1828) and Illinois 5th Attorney General (1829–1832). He was influential in creating the Illinois State Library, in part from a donation of his own personal collection. He also laid out and founded the town of

Waterloo, Illinois Waterloo is a city in and county seat of Monroe County, Illinois, United States. The population was 11,013 at the 2020 census, up from 9,811 in 2010. Geography Waterloo is located northeast of the center of Monroe County at (38.335243, -90.15 ...

. Forquer was the older half-brother of Thomas Ford, who was the state's

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

from 1842 to 1846. The two shared a law office in Edwardsville, and Forquer aided Ford in his early years as a lawyer and judge. While in the state senate, Forquer proposed a loan of half a million dollars for the

Illinois and Michigan Canal The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago ...

1836 debate

Forquer is chiefly remembered for an 1836 speech in the Springfield Court House that backfired on him, soon after he had changed his party affiliation from Whig to

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (Cyprus) (DCY) **Democratic Part ...

. Seven Whig candidates for election to the State Legislature were there, as well as seven Democrats. Among the candidates was a young lawyer seeking re-election,

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

. After Lincoln's speech, Forquer, although not a candidate, asked to speak for the Democrats. "The young man will have to be taken down," Forquer said, referring to Lincoln, and asserted that the task had fallen to him, Lincoln's superior. Literary scholar Robert Bray has characterized Lincoln's famous rebuttal as a "withering put-down...as figuratively brilliant as it was cruelly

ad hominem , short for , refers to several types of arguments that are usually fallacious. Often currently this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument ...

"The gentleman has seen fit to allude to my being a young man; but he forgets that I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction; but I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would change my politics for an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then feel compelled to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!"

Death and legacy

Forquer Street in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

is named in his honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forquer, George 1794 births 1837 deaths People from Edwardsville, Illinois Illinois state senators Illinois attorneys general Secretaries of state of Illinois People from Waterloo, Illinois 19th-century members of the Illinois General Assembly