The late
Stephen Arnold Douglas was born in
Brandon, Rutland county, Vermont, on the 23d of April, 1813. He learned the trade of a cabinet maker at
Middlebury, in his native State, and continued for a year in that business, but was obliged to abandon it on account of the state of his health.
From
Vermont he removed to
Canandaigua, New York, where he pursued the study of the law until his removal to
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1813.
From
Cleveland he removed still farther West, and finally settled in
Jacksonville, Illinois.
He obtained employment at first as clerk to an auctioneer, and afterwards taught a school, still devoting his leisure to the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1834, and rose rapidly in his profession, being elected
Attorney General of the
State before he was twenty-two years of age. In 1835 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives, and at the expiration of his term was appointed by
President Van Buren, in 1837, Register of the Land Office at
Springfield, Illinois.--In 1840, he was elected
Secretary of
State of Illinois, and the following year
Judge of the Supreme Court.
Notwithstanding his robust appearance, he seems never to have possessed a strong physical organization, and resigned his judgeship, after occupying it for two years, in consequence of ill health.
From this period his first prominence in national polities may be said to date.
He was again elected to the
United States House of Representatives in 1843, and continued a member of the lower House for four years, where he was one of the most active members, able speakers and ardent Democrats of that body.
He was an advocate of ‘"fifty-four forty or fight, "’ on the
Oregon question, and was a firm supporter of the
Mexican war. One of his best speeches was on the question of refunding to
Gen. Jackson the fine which he was obliged to pay at New Orleans.
In December, 1847, he was elected to the United States Senate.
His course there is fresh in the public memory.
He was a desperate political gamester, and sacrificed his all, and hazarded his country's all, to obtain the Presidency.
At one time he was considered a national statesman, and a man of intrepid spirit but the manner in which he succumbed of late to Lincolnism, proves that he was supple as a willow to the popular breeze.
What a contrast to
Vallandingham, standing almost alone in his sublime mora courage and fidelity ! It cannot be denied, however, that in the death of
Senator Douglas the
North has lost the greatest man in its limits — the only man, in fact, who approached the obaracter and proportions of a statesman,
