The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. , the current General Assembly is the 103rd. Under the Illinois Constitution, since 1983 the Senate has had 59 members and the House has had 118 members. In both chambers, all members are elected from single-member districts. Each Senate district is divided into two adjacent House districts. The General Assembly meets in the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Its session laws are generally adopted by majority vote in both houses, and upon gaining the assent of the Governor of Illinois. They are published in the official Laws of Illinois. Two presidents of the United States, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, began their political careers in the Illinois General Assembly–– in the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate, respectively. History The Illinois General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. Initially, the state did not have organized political parties, but the Democratic and Whig parties began to form in the 1830s. Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln successfully campaigned as a member of the Whig Party to serve in the General Assembly in 1834. He served four successive terms 1834–42 in the Illinois House of Representatives, supporting expanded suffrage and economic development. The Illinois Republican Party was organized at a conference held in Major's Hall in Bloomington, Illinois on May 29, 1856. Its founding members came from the former Whig Party in Illinois after its members joined with several powerful local political factions including, notably, the Independent Democrat movement of Chicago that helped elect James Hutchinson Woodworth as mayor in 1848. During the election of 1860 in which Lincoln was elected president, Illinois also elected a Republican governor and legislature, but the trials of war helped return the state legislature to the Democrats in 1861. The Democratic-led legislature investigated the state's war expenditures and the treatment of Illinois troops, but with little political gain. They also worked to frame a new state constitution nicknamed the "Copperhead constitution", which would have given Southern Illinois increased representation and included provisions to discourage banking and the circulation of paper currency. Voters rejected each of the constitution's provisions, except the bans on black settlement, voting and office holding. The Democratic Party