Edward Coles (December 15 1786 – July 7 1868) was a neighbor and anti-slavery associate of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe as well as secretary to James Madison (1810 to 1815) and the second Governor of Illinois (1822 to 1826). An anti-slavery advocate throughout his adult life and who inherited a plantation and slaves Coles left Virginia for the Illinois Territory in order to set them free.
This page contains content from the copyrighted Wikipedia article "Edward Coles"; that content is used under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.
