In order to see how the development of law in Illinois reflected a response by a dominant political culture to the challenges of transformative technology, it is necessary to review some of the politics that shaped the state prior to 1850. It was not the case, in Illinois as elsewhere, that when railroads appeared they confronted a ready-made political culture set to welcome them, nor a previously identified group of interested and empowered actors poised for action. Instead, the political culture of Illinois grew in significant part around the experiences of railroad development in the 1830s and 1840s. In the process, individual actors acquired interests and became powerful by virtue of their roles in railroad development. Institutions, ranging from political parties to the state government and the courts, both guided and developed in response to the emergence of a rail-based political economic system. Interests, ideologies, and institutions were mutually constitutive elements of the environment that in 1850 would enable and encourage the Illinois Supreme Court to undertake the project of remaking the common law.

Antebellum Illinois was divided north to south into three sections, geographically, demographically, and culturally. On crucial political questions, however, the middle section itself divided, resulting in a nearly perfect bisection of the state. Reflecting the issues that divided the nation, northern and southern Illinois were split on questions of slavery, states' rights, and the role of the national government.