Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics Part 1

Stephen A. Douglas.

by Allen Johnson.

PREFACE

To describe the career of a man who is now chiefly remembered as the rival of Abraham Lincoln, must seem to many minds a superfluous, if not invidious, undertaking. The present generation is p.r.o.ne to forget that when the rivals met in joint debate fifty years ago, on the prairies of Illinois, it was Senator Douglas, and not Mr. Lincoln, who was the cynosure of all observing eyes. Time has steadily lessened the prestige of the great Democratic leader, and just as steadily enhanced the fame of his Republican opponent.

The following pages have been written, not as a vindication, but as an interpretation of a personality whose life spans the controversial epoch before the Civil War. It is due to the chance reader to state that the writer was born in a New England home, and bred in an anti-slavery atmosphere where the political creed of Douglas could not thrive. If this book reveals a somewhat less sectional outlook than this personal allusion suggests, the credit must be given to those generous friends in the great Middle West, who have helped the writer to interpret the spirit of that region which gave both Douglas and Lincoln to the nation.

The material for this study has been brought together from many sources. Through the kindness of Mrs. James W. Patton of Springfield, Illinois, I have had access to a valuable collection of letters written by Douglas to her father, Charles H. Lanphier, Esq., editor of the Illinois _State Register_. Judge Robert M. Douglas of North Carolina has permitted me to use an autobiographical sketch of his father, as well as other papers in the possession of the family. Among those who have lightened my labors, either by copies of letters penned by Douglas or by personal recollections, I would mention with particular grat.i.tude the late Mrs. L.K. Lippincott ("Grace Greenwood"); Mr. J.H. Roberts and Stephen A. Douglas, Esq. of Chicago; Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller and the late Hon. Robert E. Hitt of Washington. With his wonted generosity, Mr. James F. Rhodes has given me the benefit of his wide acquaintance with the newspapers of the period, which have been an invaluable aid in the interpretation of Douglas's career. Finally, by personal acquaintance and conversation with men who knew him, I have endeavored to catch the spirit of those who made up the great ma.s.s of his const.i.tuents.

Brunswick, Maine,

November, 1907.

BOOK I

THE CALL OF THE WEST

CHAPTER I

FROM THE GREEN MOUNTAINS TO THE PRAIRIES

The dramatic moments in the colonizing of coastal New England have pa.s.sed into song, story, and sober chronicle; but the farther migration of the English people, from tide-water to interior, has been too prosaic a theme for poets and too diverse a movement for historians. Yet when all the factors in our national history shall be given their full value, none will seem more potent than the great racial drift from the New England frontier into the heart of the continent. The New Englanders who formed a broad belt from Vermont and New York across the Northwest to Kansas, were a social and political force of incalculable power, in the era which ended with the Civil War. The New Englander of the Middle West, however, ceased to be altogether a Yankee. The lake and prairie plains bred a spirit which contrasted strongly with the smug provincialism of rock-ribbed and sterile New England. The exultation born of wide, unbroken, horizon lines and broad, teeming, prairie landscapes, found expression in the often-quoted saying, "Vermont is the most glorious spot on the face of this globe for a man to be born in, _provided_ he emigrates when he is very young." The career of Stephen Arnold Douglas is intelligible only as it is viewed against the background of a New England boyhood, a young manhood pa.s.sed on the prairies of Illinois, and a wedded life pervaded by the gentle culture of Southern womanhood.

In America, observed De Tocqueville two generations ago, democracy disposes every man to forget his ancestors. When the Hon. Stephen A.

Douglas was once asked to prepare an account of his career for a biographical history of Congress, he chose to omit all but the barest reference to his forefathers.[1] Possibly he preferred to leave the family tree naked, that his unaided rise to eminence might the more impress the chance reader. Yet the records of the Dougla.s.s family are not uninteresting.[2] The first of the name to cross the ocean was William Dougla.s.s, who was born in Scotland and who wedded Mary Ann, daughter of Thomas Marble of Northampton. Just when this couple left Old England is not known, but the birth of a son is recorded in Boston, in the year 1645. Soon after this event they removed to New London, preferring, it would seem, to try their luck in an outlying settlement, for this region was part of the Pequot country. Somewhat more than a hundred years later, Benajah Dougla.s.s, a descendant of this pair and grandfather of the subject of this sketch, pushed still farther into the interior, and settled in Rensselaer County, in the province of New York. The marriage of Benajah Dougla.s.s to Martha Arnold, a descendant of Governor William Arnold of Rhode Island, has an interest for those who are disposed to find Celtic qualities in the grandson, for the Arnolds were of Welsh stock, and may be supposed to have revived the strain in the Dougla.s.s blood.

Tradition has made Benajah Dougla.s.s a soldier in the war of the Revolution, but authentic records go no farther back than the year 1795, when he removed with his family to Brandon, Vermont. There he purchased a farm of about four hundred acres, which he must have cultivated with some degree of skill, since it seems to have yielded an ample competency. He is described as a man of genial, buoyant disposition, with much self-confidence. He was five times chosen selectman of Brandon; and five times he was elected to represent the town in the General a.s.sembly. The physical qualities of the grandson may well have been a family inheritance, since of Benajah we read that he was of medium height, with large head and body, short neck, and short limbs.[3]

The portrait of Benajah's son is far less distinct. He was a graduate of Middlebury College and a physician by profession. He married Sally Fisk, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer in Brandon, by whom he had two children, the younger of whom was Stephen Arnold Dougla.s.s, born April 23, 1813. The promising career of the young doctor was cut short by a sudden stroke, which overtook him as he held his infant son in his arms. The plain, little one-and-a-half story house, in which the boy first saw the light, suggests that the young physician had been unable to provide for more than the bare necessities of his family.[4]

Soon after the death of Dr. Dougla.s.s, his widow removed to the farm which she and her unmarried brother had inherited from her father. The children grew to love this bachelor uncle with almost filial affection. Too young to take thought for the morrow, they led the wholesome, natural life of country children. Stephen went to the district school on the Brandon turnpike, and had no reason to bemoan the fate which left him largely dependent upon his uncle's generosity.

An old school-mate recalls young Dougla.s.s through the haze of years, as a robust, healthy boy, with generous instincts though tenacious of his rights.[5] After school hours work and play alternated. The regular farm ch.o.r.es were not the least part in the youngster's education; he learned to be industrious and not to despise honest labor.[6]

This bare outline of a commonplace boyhood must be filled in with many details drawn from environment. Stephen fell heir to a wealth of inspiring local traditions. The fresh mountain breezes had also once blown full upon the anxious faces of heroes and patriots; the quiet valleys had once echoed with the noise of battle; this land of the Green Mountains was the Wilderness of colonial days, the frontier for restless New Englanders, where with good axe and stout heart they had carved their home plots out of the virgin forest. Many a legend of adventure, of border warfare, and of personal heroism, was still current among the Green Mountain folk. Where was the Vermont lad who did not fight over again the battles of Bennington, Ticonderoga, and Plattsburg?

Other influences were scarcely less formative in the life of the growing boy. Vermont was also the land of the town meeting. Whatever may be said of the efficiency of town government, it was and is a school of democracy. In Vermont it was the natural political expression of social forces. How else, indeed, could the general will find fit expression, except through the attrition of many minds? And who could know better the needs of the community than the commonalty?

Not that men reasoned about the philosophy of their political inst.i.tutions: they simply accepted them. And young Dougla.s.s grew up in an atmosphere friendly to local self-government of an extreme type.

Stephen was nearing his fourteenth birthday, when an event occurred which interrupted the even current of his life. His uncle, who was commonly regarded as a confirmed old bachelor, confounded the village gossips by bringing home a young bride. The birth of a son and heir was the nephew's undoing. While the uncle regarded Stephen with undiminished affection, he was now much more emphatically _in loco parentis_. An indefinable something had come between them. The subtle change in relationship was brought home to both when Stephen proposed that he should go to the academy in Brandon, to prepare for college.

That he was to go to college, he seems to have taken for granted.

There was a moment of embarra.s.sment, and then the uncle told the lad, frankly but kindly, that he could not provide for his further education. With considerable show of affection, he advised him to give up the notion of going to college and to remain on the farm, where he would have an a.s.sured competence. In after years the grown man related this incident with a tinge of bitterness, averring that there had been an understanding in the family that he was to attend college.[7]

Momentary disappointment he may have felt, to be sure, but he could hardly have been led to believe that he could draw indefinitely upon his uncle's bounty.

Piqued and somewhat resentful, Stephen made up his mind to live no longer under his uncle's roof. He would show his spirit by proving that he was abundantly able to take care of himself. Much against the wishes of his mother, who knew him to be mastered by a boyish whim, he apprenticed himself to Nahum Parker, a cabinet-maker in Middlebury.[8]

He put on his ap.r.o.n, went to work sawing table legs from two-inch planks, and, delighted with the novelty of the occupation and exhilarated by his newly found sense of freedom, believed himself on the highway to happiness and prosperity. He found plenty of companions with whom he spent his idle hours, young fellows who had a taste for politics and who rapidly kindled in the newcomer a consuming admiration for Andrew Jackson. He now began to read with avidity such political works as came to hand. Discussion with his new friends and with his employer, who was an ardent supporter of Adams and Clay, whetted his appet.i.te for more reading and study. In after years he was wont to say that these were the happiest days of his life.[9]

Toward the end of the year, he became dissatisfied with his employer because he was forced to perform "some menial services in the house."[10] He wished his employer to know that he was not a household servant, but an apprentice. Further difficulties arose, which terminated his apprenticeship in Middlebury. Returning to Brandon, he entered the shop of Deacon Caleb Knowlton, also a cabinet-maker; but in less than a year he quit this employer on the plea of ill-health.[11] It is quite likely that the confinement and severe manual labor may have overtaxed the strength of the growing boy; but it is equally clear that he had lost his taste for cabinet work. He never again expressed a wish to follow a trade. He again took up his abode with his mother; and, the means now coming to hand from some source, he enrolled as a student in Brandon Academy, with the avowed purpose of preparing for a professional career.[12] It was a wise choice. Vermont may have lost a skilled handworker--there are those who vouch for the excellence of his handiwork[13]--but the Union gained a joiner of first-rate ability.

Wedding bells rang in another change in his fortunes. The marriage of his sister to a young New Yorker from Ontario County, was followed by the marriage of his mother to the father, Gehazi Granger. Both couples took up their residence on the Granger estate, and thither also went Stephen, with perhaps a sense of loneliness in his boyish heart.[14]

He was then but seventeen. This removal to New York State proved to be his first step along a path which Vermonters were wearing toward the West.

Happily, his academic course was not long interrupted by this migration, for Canandaigua Academy, which offered unusual advantages, was within easy reach from his new home. Under the wise instruction of Professor Henry Howe, he began the study of Latin and Greek; and by his own account made "considerable improvement," though there is little evidence in his later life of any acquaintance with the cla.s.sics. He took an active part in the doings of the literary societies of the academy, distinguishing himself by his readiness in debate. His Democratic proclivities were still strong; and he became an ardent defender of Democracy against the rising tide of Anti-Masonry, which was threatening to sweep New York from its political moorings. Tradition says that young Dougla.s.s mingled much with local politicians, learning not a little about the arts and devices by which the Albany Regency controlled the Democratic organization in the State. In this school of practical politics he was beyond a peradventure an apt pupil.

A characteristic story is told of Dougla.s.s during these school days at Canandaigua.[15] A youngster who occupied a particularly desirable seat at table had been ousted by another lad, who claimed a better right to the place. Some one suggested that the claimants should have the case argued by counsel before a board of arbitration. The dispossessed boy lost his case, because of the superior skill with which Dougla.s.s presented the claims of his client. "It was the first a.s.sertion of the doctrine of squatter sovereignty," said the defeated claimant, recalling the incident years afterward, when both he and Douglas were in politics.

Dougla.s.s was now maturing rapidly. His ideals were clearer; his native tastes more p.r.o.nounced. It is not improbable that already he looked forward to politics as a career. At all events he took the proximate step toward that goal by beginning the study of law in the office of local attorneys, at the same time continuing his studies begun in the academy. What marked him off from his comrades even at this period was his lively acquisitiveness. He seemed to learn quite as much by indirection as by persevering application to books.[16]

In the spring of 1833, the same unrest that sent the first Dougla.s.s across the sea to the new world, seized the young man. Against the remonstrances of his mother and his relatives, he started for the great West which then spelled opportunity to so many young men. He was only twenty years old, and he had not yet finished his academic course; but with the impatience of ambition he was reluctant to spend four more years in study before he could gain admission to the bar. In the newer States of the West conditions were easier. Moreover, he was no longer willing to be a burden to his mother, whose resources were limited. And so, with purposes only half formed and with only enough money for his immediate needs, he began, not so much a journey, as a drift in a westerly direction, for he had no particular destination in view.[17]

After a short stay in Buffalo and a visit to Niagara Falls and the battle ground of Chippewa, the boy took a steamboat to Cleveland, where happily he found a friend in Sherlock J. Andrews, Esquire, a successful attorney and a man of kindly impulses. Finding the city attractive and the requirements for the Ohio bar less rigorous, Dougla.s.s determined to drop anchor in this pleasant port. Mr. Andrews encouraged him in this purpose, offering the use of his office and law library. In a single year Dougla.s.s hoped to gain admission to the bar. With characteristic energy, he began his studies. Fate ruled, however, that his career should not be linked with the Western Reserve. Within a few days he was prostrated by that foe which then lurked in the marshes and lowlands of the West--foe more dreaded than the redman--malarial typhoid. For four weary months he kept his bed, hovering between life and death, until the heat of summer was spent and the first frosts of October came to revive him. Urgent appeals now came to him to return home; but pride kept him from yielding. After paying all his bills, he still had forty dollars left. He resolved to push on farther into the interior.[18]

He was far from well when he took the ca.n.a.l boat from Cleveland to Portsmouth on the Ohio river; but he was now in a reckless and adventurous mood. He would test his luck by pressing on to Cincinnati.

He had no well-defined purpose: he was in a listless mood, which was no doubt partly the result of physical exhaustion. From Cincinnati he drifted on to Louisville, and then to St. Louis. His small funds were now almost all spent. He must soon find occupation or starve. His first endeavor was to find a law office where he could earn enough by copying and other work to pay his expenses while he continued his law studies. No such opening fell in his way and he had no letters of introduction here to smooth his path. He was now convinced that he must seek some small country town. Hearing that Jacksonville, Illinois, was a thriving settlement, he resolved to try his luck in this quarter. With much the same desperation with which a gambler plays his last stake, he took pa.s.sage on a river boat up the Illinois, and set foot upon the soil of the great prairie State.[19]

A primitive stage coach plied between the river and Jacksonville. Too fatigued to walk the intervening distance, Dougla.s.s mounted the lumbering vehicle and ruefully paid his fare. From this point of vantage he took in the prairie landscape. Morgan County was then but spa.r.s.ely populated. Timber fringed the creeks and the river bottoms, while the prairie gra.s.s grew rank over soil of unsuspected fertility.

Most dwellings were rude structures made of rough-hewn logs and designed as makeshifts. Wildcats and wolves prowled through the timber lands in winter, and game of all sorts abounded.[20] As the stage swung lazily along, the lad had ample time to let the first impression of the prairie landscape sink deep. In the timber, the trees were festooned with bitter-sweet and with vines bearing wild grapes; in the open country, nothing but unmeasured stretches of waving gra.s.s caught the eye.[21] To one born and bred among the hills, this broad horizon and unbroken landscape must have been a revelation. Weak as he was, Dougla.s.s drew in the fresh autumnal air with zest, and unconsciously borrowed from the face of nature a sense of unbounded capacity. Years afterward, when he was famous, he testified, "I found my mind liberalized and my opinions enlarged, when I got on these broad prairies, with only the heavens to bound my vision, instead of having them circ.u.mscribed by the little ridges that surrounded the valley where I was born."[22] But of all this he was unconscious, when he alighted from the stage in Jacksonville. He was simply a wayworn lad, without a friend in the town and with only one dollar and twenty-five cents in his pocket.[23]

Jacksonville was then hardly more than a crowded village of log cabins on the outposts of civilized Illinois.[24] Comfort was not among the first concerns of those who had come to subdue the wilderness. Comfort implied leisure to enjoy, and leisure was like Heaven,--to be attained only after a wearisome earthly pilgrimage. Jacksonville had been scourged by the cholera during the summer; and those who had escaped the disease had fled the town for fear of it.[25] By this time, however, the epidemic had spent itself, and the refugees had returned.

All told, the town had a population of about one thousand souls, among whom were no less than eleven lawyers, or at least those who called themselves such.[26]

A day's lodging at the Tavern ate up the remainder of the wanderer's funds, so that he was forced to sell a few school books that he had brought with him. Meanwhile he left no stone unturned to find employment to his liking. One of his first acquaintances was Murray McConnell, a lawyer, who advised him to go to Pekin, farther up the Illinois River, and open a law office. The young man replied that he had no license to practice law and no law books. He was a.s.sured that a license was a matter of no consequence, since anyone could practice before a justice of the peace, and he could procure one at his leisure. As for books, McConnell, with true Western generosity, offered to loan such as would be of immediate use. So again Dougla.s.s took up his travels. At Meredosia, the nearest landing on the river, he waited a week for the boat upstream. There was no other available route to Pekin. Then came the exasperating intelligence, that the only boat which plied between these points had blown up at Alton. After settling accounts with the tavern-keeper, he found that he had but fifty cents left.[27]

There was now but one thing to do, since hard manual labor was out of the question: he would teach school. But where? Meredosia was a forlorn, thriftless place, and he had no money to travel. Fortunately, a kind-hearted farmer befriended him, lodging him at his house over night and taking him next morning to Exeter, where there was a prospect of securing a school. Disappointment again awaited him; but Winchester, ten miles away, was said to need a teacher. Taking his coat on his arm--he had left his trunk at Meredosia--he set off on foot for Winchester.[28]

Accident, happily turned to his profit, served to introduce him to the townspeople of Winchester. The morning after his arrival, he found a crowd in the public square and learned that an auction sale of personal effects was about to take place. Everyone from the administrator of the estate to the village idler, was eager for the sale to begin. But a clerk to keep record of the sales and to draw the notes was wanting. The eye of the administrator fell upon Dougla.s.s; something in the youth's appearance gave a.s.surance that he could "cipher.". The impatient bystanders "'lowed that he might do," so he was given a trial. Dougla.s.s proved fully equal to the task, and in two days was in possession of five dollars for his pains.[29]

Through the good will of the village storekeeper, who also hailed from Vermont, Dougla.s.s was presented to several citizens who wished to see a school opened in town; and by the first Monday in December he had a subscription list of forty scholars, each of whom paid three dollars for three months' tuition.[30] Luck was now coming his way. He found lodgings under the roof of this same friendly compatriot, the village storekeeper, who gave him the use of a small room adjoining the store-room.[31] Here Dougla.s.s spent his evenings, devoting some hours to his law books and perhaps more to comfortable chats with his host and talkative neighbors around the stove. For diversion he had the weekly meetings of the Lyceum, which had just been formed.[32] He owed much to this inst.i.tution, for the the debates and discussions gave him a chance to convert the traditional leadership which fell to him as village schoolmaster, into a real leadership of talent and ready wit.

In this Lyceum he made his first political speech, defending Andrew Jackson and his attack upon the Bank against Josiah Lamborn, a lawyer from Jacksonville.[33] For a young man he proved himself astonishingly well-informed. If the chronology of his autobiography may be accepted, he had already read the debates in the Const.i.tutional Convention of 1787, the _Federalist_, the works of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and the recent debates in Congress.

Even while he was teaching school, Dougla.s.s found time to practice law in a modest way before the justices of the peace; and when the first of March came, he closed the schoolhouse door on his career as pedagogue. He at once repaired to Jacksonville and presented himself before a justice of the Supreme Court for license to practice law.

After a short examination, which could not have been very searching, he was duly admitted to the bar of Illinois. He still lacked a month of being twenty-one years of age.[34] Measured by the standard of older communities in the East, he knew little law; but there were few cases in these Western courts which required much more than common-sense, ready speech, and acquaintance with legal procedure.

_Stare decisis_ was a maxim that did not trouble the average lawyer, for there were few decisions to stand upon.[35] Besides, experience would make good any deficiencies of preparation.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: There can be little doubt that he supplied the data for the sketch in Wheeler's Biographical and Political History of Congress.]

[Footnote 2: See Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1901, pp. 113-114.]