In force Jan.[January] 17, 1835.
AN ACT dividing the State into Judicial Circuits.
11st circuit.
2d circuit.
3d circuit.
4th circuit.
5th circuit.
6th circuit.
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the counties of Calhoun, Greene, Morgan, Sangamon, Macoupin,2 Macon, Tazewell and M’Lean, shall form the first judicial circuit; the counties of Madison, St. Clair, Monroe, Randolph, Washington, Clinton, Bond, Montgomery, Shelby, Effingham and Fayette, shall form the second judicial circuit; the counties of Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin, Gallatin, Pope, Johnson, Alexander, Union, Jackson, Marion and Perry, shall form the third judicial circuit; the counties of Wayne, White, Edwards, Wabash, Lawrence, Crawford, Jasper, Clark, Edgar, Vermilion, Champaign, Coles and
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Clay, shall form the fourth judicial district; the counties of Pike, Adams, Hancock, M’Donough, Knox, Warren, Fulton and Schuyler, shall form the fifth judicial circuit; and the counties of Jo Daviess, Rock Island, Mercer, Henry, Peoria, Putnam, La Salle, Cook, and Iroquois, shall form the sixth judicial circuit.
This act to be in force from and after its passage.3
Approved, Jan. 17, 1835.
1William H. Davidson introduced SB 54 in the Senate on January 8, 1835. On January 12, the Senate amended the bill by adding “Macoupin”
to the First Judicial Circuit and passed the bill as amended by a vote of 16 yeas to 3 nays. The House of Representatives concurred on January 13. On January 17, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1834. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 272, 285-86, 287, 303, 312, 318; Illinois Senate Journal. 1834. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 205, 216, 250, 267, 268, 271.
2On January 12, 1835, the Senate amended the bill by adding “Macoupin” to the First Judicial Circuit.
Illinois Senate Journal. 1834. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 216.
3As the state’s population grew and shifted, the Illinois General Assembly somewhat regularly reorganized the judicial circuits in the 1830s. This act increased
the judicial circuits in Illinois from five to six, which would serve Illinois until
1837, when the General Assembly reorganized the circuits and added a seventh circuit.
“An Act Supplemental to the Several Acts Regulating the Supreme and Circuit Courts
of This State,” approved 16 February 1831, The Laws of Illinois (1831), 45; An Act Forming an Additional Judicial Circuit (1837).
Printed Document, 2 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at their First Session (Vandalia, IL:
J. Y. Sawyer, 1835), 153-54, GA Session: 9-1,