Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen Arnold Douglas (April 23, 1813–June 3, 1861), American politician from Illinois, was one of the Democratic Party nominees for President in 1860 (the other being John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky). Each lost to Republican Party candidate Abraham Lincoln, also from Illinois.

Service in the Senate

As chairman of the committee on territories, at first in the House, and then in the Senate, of which he became a member in December, 1847, it fell to Douglas to introduce the bills for admitting Texas, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California and Oregon into the Union, and for organising the territories of Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, Kansas and Nebraska. In 1848 he introduced a bill proposing that all the territory acquired from Mexico should be admitted into the Union as a single state, and upon the defeat of this bill proposed others providing for the immediate admission of parts of this territory.

Related Topics:
Senate - 1847 - Florida - Iowa - Wisconsin - Minnesota - California - New Mexico - Utah - Washington - Kansas - Nebraska

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In the bitter debates concerning the keenly disputed question of the permission of slavery in the territories, Douglas became particularly prominent. Douglas seems never to have had any personal moral antipathy towards slavery; in March of 1847, he married Martha Martin, the daughter of a slaveholder, Colonel Robert Martin of North Carolina, and a cousin of D.S. Reid, one of Douglas's colleague in Congress. Martha and their children owned slaves by inheritance, although Douglas himself never did. He likely did more than any other single man, except Henry Clay, to secure the adoption of the Compromise Measures of 1850. In 1849 the Illinois legislature demanded that its representatives and senators vote for the prohibition of slavery in the Mexican cession, but by the next year this sentiment in Illinois had grown much weaker, and, both there and in Congress, Douglas's name was soon identified with the so-called "popular sovereignty" or "squatter sovereignty" theory, previously enunciated by Lewis Cass, by which each territory was to be left to decide for itself whether it should or should not have slavery. In 1850 his power of specious argument won him back his Chicago constituents who had violently attacked him for not opposing the Fugitive Slave Law.

Related Topics:
Slavery - March - 1847 - North Carolina - Henry Clay - Compromise Measures - 1850 - 1849 - Lewis Cass - Chicago

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The bill for organizing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which Douglas reported in January 1854 and which was signed in amended form by President Franklin Pierce on May 30, reopened the whole slavery dispute - wantonly, his enemies charged, for the purpose of securing Southern support, - and caused great popular excitement. It repealed the part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which excluded slavery from the regions of the Louisiana Purchase north of the Mason-Dixon line, and declared the people of "any state or territory" "free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." The passage of this Kansas-Nebraska Bill, one of the most consequential ever passed by the Federal Congress, became largely a personal triumph for Douglas, who showed marvellous energy, adroitness and resourcefulness, and a genius for leadership. There was great indignation throughout the free states; even in Chicago, Douglas was unable to win for himself a hearing before a public meeting.

Related Topics:
1854 - Franklin Pierce - May 30 - Missouri Compromise - 1820 - Louisiana Purchase - Mason-Dixon - Constitution - Kansas-Nebraska Bill - Leadership

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