In force, Jan.[January] 7, 1841.
An ACT to extend the time for taking an enumeration of the inhabitants
of this State.
1Commis’rs[Commissioners] to take State census allowed time to January 1. 1841, to make returns.
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That all persons appointed by the county commissioners’ courts of the several counties
of this State, to take the census or enumeration of the inhabitants of any county, shall have until the first day of January,2 in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-one, for the purpose
of taking and completing such enumeration or census and making the returns thereof,
as directed by an act to provide for the taking of the census or enumeration of the
inhabitants of the State, approved January thirteenth, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine, and the
pains and penalties of the said last recited act shall not accrue against the persons
taking such census or enumeration until after the aforesaid first day of January.3
Approved, January 7, 1841.
1Ebenezer Peck presented a petition from Samuel Hoard to the House of Representatives on November 27, 1840, requesting an extension for completing the census to January
1, 1841, and the House referred it to a select committee. Peck introduced HB 4 on December 1 and the House amended it. The House passed the bill the next day. The
Senate passed the bill on December 21. The Council of Revision approved the bill on January 7, 1841, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 31, 42, 45, 51, 145, 166, 200; Illinois Senate Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 42, 66-67, 71, 93, 101 .
2The House of Representatives passed an amendment on December 1, 1840, changing “20th day of December” to “1st
day of January.”
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 42.
3The law regulating the state census stipulated that commissioners who failed to
turn over their records to the Secretary of State and their county’s circuit court
clerk by the first Monday in December were subject to a $300 fine.
“An Act to Provide for the Taking of the Census, or Enumeration of the Inhabitants
of the State,” 13 January 1829, Laws (1829), 18-22.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twelfth General Assembly> (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1841), 52, GA Session 12-2,