The Life of Stephen A. Douglas

"My dear Sir:--Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time and address the same audiences the present canvass? Mr. Judd, who will hand y...

"I am not opposed to the honest acquisition of territory. * * * I would or would not oppose such acquisition accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would not agg...

Congress adjourned on June 16th and Douglas, after spending a few days in New York, returned to Chicago. Meanwhile the people of Illinois had awakened to great political activit...

He was reelected Senator in 1853 without serious opposition. He had hitherto been one of the most earnest defenders of the sacredness of the Missouri Compromise. He had strenuou...

Congress had confessed its incompetency to deal with the Kansas problem and referred it to the decision of rude squatters on the frontier. They dealt with this grave congression...

Douglas served two terms in the House and was again elected in 1846, but in January following was chosen Senator, taking his seat on March 4th, 1847. In April following he marri...

While events in Washington in the spring of 1860 were full of historic interest, greater and more memorable events were occurring in Charleston. The Democratic Convention met in...

The people were greatly exasperated by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. The City Council, on October 21st, passed resolutions harshly condemning the Senators and Represent...

While the Supreme Court was dedicating the Territories to slavery and Douglas was preaching local nullification, anarchy continued its delirious dance in Kansas. Guerilla warfar...

Although victorious in the greatest battle of his life the position of Douglas was not easy. The people of Illinois were evidently no longer in sympathy with him. The Buchanan A...

The powerful will and effective energy of the young Senator had achieved a legislative revolution. Perhaps, like Geethe's apprentice, he had called into action powers of mischie...

On February 2nd Buchanan sent to Congress his message, transmitting the Lecompton Constitution and urging its approval. As apology for his change of front and excuse for a like...

The anger of the world was rising against American slavery. It was confessedly a shocking anomaly in our system of universal freedom and democratic equality. The people of the s...

In the following spring he received the Democratic nomination for Congress and resigned his judgeship to enter the campaign. The District included eleven large counties in the w...

Douglas was now at the zenith of his success, master of all his resources, the most admired, dreaded and powerful man in American public life. History must inexorably condemn mu...

In those days Illinois was a frontier State with about 200,000 population, chiefly settled in its southern half. A large part of the people were from the South and, in defiance...

After the adjournment he devoted himself to a new and unfamiliar task. He prepared an article for Harper's Magazine on the slavery question and its relation to party politics, i...

Stephen Arnold Douglas was born at Brandon, Vermont, on the 23rd of April, 1813. His father was a physician, descended from Scotch ancestors, who had settled in Connecticut befo...