Okay, I know my blogging record has been pretty spoty this year, but I have been very busy! Mainly, school. I'm including a essay I did for school on Stephen Douglas.
Believe me, there's LOTS of posts that I WANT to post, but don't have. Sometime I get time and post a lot!
But anyway, here's a report that I thought y'all might like. Enjoy!
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STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS-AMERICAN POLICTION
Stephen A. Douglas was born on April 23, 1813 in the town of Brandon, Vermont. When he was 20, he got up and moved to the exciting frontier state of Illinois. He was penniless.
But Douglas was not meant to be an ordinary man. Within 12 months he was a practicing lawyer in Morgan County, Illinois. The young lawyer was a fervent follower of then-president Andrew Jackson, (1829-1837). Because of his strong liking for Jackson, people nicknamed him, “The Little Giant.”
‘The Little Giant’ became a very big politician. Douglas was a member of the General Assembly for two years, 1836-37. That same year (1837) he was made Registrar of the Land Office in Springfield. Then Stephen Douglas was made Secretary of State, until he was appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court in 1841.
But Douglas didn’t stop in just state politics. In 1843 he was elected to Congress. After four years there, he was elected to the Senate in 1847.
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an early promoter of a transcontinental railroad with a terminus of Chicago, therefore benefiting his adopted state of Illinois.
‘The Little Giant’ helped with the passage of several bills and acts. One of the big issues of the times was if slavery was going to be allowed in the new states and territories.
However, the Compromise of 1850, a bill that stated that each state decided if they were going to allow slavery, ultimately failed.
In 1858, S. A. Douglas ran for re-election in the United States Senate. His opponent was a little-known Illinois politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln & Douglas now held their now-famous chain of debates during their run for election. The big question was slavery. Would it be allowed into the new states and territories? Each debate gave each candidate the opportunity to advance his approach to the slavery issue.
Lincoln believed that the country should stop slavery from going into new areas. Douglas thought that if slavery was prohibited in the new states and territories that civil war would result. In the end,
Douglas won the election for a seat in the Senate.
Even though ‘the Little Giant’ won the election for the Senate, the debates brought ‘Honest Abe’ to the attention of the country.
But that was not all that Stephen Douglas was meant to do, as Abraham Lincoln and ‘the Little Giant’ met again in the 1860 presidential election. Stephen Arnold Douglas had waited a long time to be a president hopeful, but in the end his dream was crushed.
Lincoln believed that blacks were equal to whites, but Douglas disagreed.
He stated, “This Government was made by our fathers on the white basis . . . made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever.”*
Ultimately, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election. Lincoln got 39.8% of the vote, while Douglas only got 29.5% of the vote. However, there were two other candidates as well. John Bell was from Tennessee and was the nominee for the Constitutional Union party. The Democrat party was split between two people: John C. Breckinridge, from Kentucky, was the Southern Democrat and Stephen Douglas was the Northern Democrat. Douglas had gotten most of his votes from the Irish Catholics of the nation.
When civil war brook out, Stephen Douglas was one of the strongest promoters of Unionism. ‘The Little Giant’ believed that secession was a crime. At request of President Lincoln, Douglas went on a mission to the border States to provoke a spirit of Unionism.
Stephen Arnold Douglas died on June 3, 1861 from a case of typhoid fever. Douglas was 48 years old. He was buried on the shore of Lake Michigan, and now a statue of him stands guard over his grave.
There are over 10 counties in various states named for ‘the Little Giant’. There is a Fort Douglas in Utah, and two cities in Georgia named for him. The seat of Douglas County, Georgia is fittingly called Douglasville.
Stephen A. Douglas is a politician well to remember. He was a passionate Senate person, and campaigned for many good ideals. It would be good to remember the little people in the history of our country who, though not famous, still made a big difference in this great nation of ours.
Sources:
1. http://www.stephenadouglas.org/douglas-biography.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Douglas
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1860
* David Donald, Lincoln. (1995) p. 222
