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HON. WILLIAM M. SPRINGER, present member of Congress from the Twelfth District of Illinois, was born in Sullivan county, Indiana, 30th of May, 1836. When twelve years old he moved with his parents to Jacksonville, Illinois. There William prepared for college under the instructions of Dr. Newton Bateman, then teaching in the West District school of that city. He entered Illinois College, but owing to some difficulty with the faculty was dismissed from the institution, and went thence in the spring of 1856, to the State University of Indiana. In 1858 Mr. Springer returned to Illinois, and after studying law nearly three years in Lincoln, was admitted to the Bar in 1860. The same year he was a candidate on the Democratic ticket for Representative in the State Legislature, for the district composed of Logan and Mason counties, but was defeated by Colonel Robert B. Latham. In 1861 he settled in Springfield, and soon formed a law partnership with Hon. N. M. Broadwell, and Gen. John A. McClernand, the latter of whom retiring some years after, the firm continued as Broadwell & Springer. Returning home in 1870 at the close of a two year's tour in Europe, for pleasure and the improvement of his wife's feeble health, Mr. Springer was elected to represent Sangamon County in the legislature. That being the first after the formation of a new Constitution. Several sessions were held during 1870-71 and 1871-72, and a complete revision of the Statutes of Illinois was made while he served in that body.

In 1874, Mr. Springer was elected Representative to Congress for the Twelfth District, composed of the counties of Cass, Christian, Menard, Morgan, Sangamon and Scott, and re-elected in 1876, 1878 and 1880, being nominated the first time on the first ballot, and each subsequent time by acclamation, the delegations from each county being instructed to support him. This, in the face of the fact that Sangamon county has furnished the Representative from this district for twenty years consecutively, speaks well for the popularity of the present incumbent. In the Forty-fourth Congress, Mr. Springer was a member of several important committees. When the bill was introduced, in that session, to grant a million and a half dollars by the Government to the Centennial Commissioners, Mr. Springer offered an amendment, that upon the close of the Exposition and the sale of the property, the Government should be reimbursed by that amount from the proceeds before any dividend could be made to the stockholders. The bill became a law, as amended. The Centennial Board attempted to evade the payment of the money into the United States Treasury, through a supposed defect in Mr. Springer's amendment clause, but he, being selected by the Attorney General to prosecute the cause, fought it through the United States Supreme Court, and obtained a verdict sustaining the act, and recovering to the Government fifteen hundred thousand dollars. For this valuable labor he has not, as yet, received a dollar compensation, though he has asked Congress to allow him to go before the Court of claims and prove the value of his services.

In the Forty-fifth Congress Mr. Springer served on several prominent committees, among them the Potter Election Committee and the committee to investigate Mr. Seward's official records while Minister to China, and which reported twelve articles of impeachment against him. In the same Congress mr. Springer bolted the caucus nomination of his party and supported General Shields against Mr. Field, the party nominee.

He was the only Democratic member from the Northwest who voted against the Birchard and Hardridge resolutions, declaring that neither the courts nor Congress possessed the power to disturb Mr. Hayes' Presidential title, his action creating great excitement at the time. Mr. Springer believed that a wrong had been done in giving Mr. Hayes the Presidency, while he opposed all revolutionary measures, thought the Government had the power to right that wrong. Mr. Springer was the Chairman of the Committee on Elections in the Forty-sixth Congress, and opposed the majority of his party in their effort to unseat Representative W. D. Washburne, of Minnesota, and substitute Ignatius Donnelly in his stead. He thought the claim of Mr. Donnelly unjust and the proceedings dishonest; and although great pressure was brought to bear, through threats and slanderous charges of bribery, from which he was triumphantly vindicated, to coerce him to support the measure, he persistently opposed it, and was conspicuous in its defeat. The object of the movement was to secure a Democratic majority in the House so that the party could elect the President in 1880, in case it should be thrown into the House of Representatives.