DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD, 1813-61; a statesman; b. Brandon, Vt., d. Chicago. his father, a respectable physician, died when lie was two months old, leaving the mother in straitened circumstances. The son lived with her on a farm until he was 15 years old, when he apprenticed himself to a cabinet-maker. Before the end of two years his health failed and he abandoned his occupation. After attending Brandon academy for one year, he removed with his mother to Canandaigua, N. Y., and resumed his studies in the academy there, at the same time beginning to prepare himself for the legal profession. In 1833, he went to Winchester, Ill., walking a part of the waY for lack of funds, and opened a school, which lie taught for three months, still pursuing his studies for the bar. In 1834, he was admitted to practice and within a year was elected attorney-general for the state. He resigned this office, Dec., 1835, on being elected a member of the legislature. In 1837, he was appointed register of the "United States land office at Springfield, but resigned in 1839. In 1837, he was nominated for member of congress by the democratic party, and came very near an election. In 1840, he was appointed secretary of state of Illinois. In 1841, he was elected a judge of the supreme court of the state by the legislature, but resigned in 1843 to become again a can didate for congress. He was elected this time by over 400 majority, and re-elected for' two successive terms. He resigned after his election for the third time, to accept the post of senator of the United States for six years from Mar. 4, 1847. As a member of the house of representatives, lie took an active part in the political discussions of the time. In the Oregon controversy he took extreme ground against Great Britain, claiming the whole territory for the United States up to lat. 54° 40'. He was also an earnest advocate for the annexation of Texas, and as chairman of the committee on territories, 1846, reported the joint resolution declaring that country to be one of the states of the Amer ican union. He was an ardent supporter of president Polk in the war with Mexico. The bills to organize the territories of Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, Utah, Wash ington, Kansas, and Nebraska, were all reported by him, as were also those providing for the admission to the union of the states of Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, and Oregon. He was a strenuous opponent of the "Wilmot proviso," and of every other measure for resisting the extension of slavery by federal action, holding to the doctrine called squatter sovereignty"—the doctrine, in other words, that the settlers in a territory had the right to say whether they would have slavery or not. In Aug., 1848, how ever, he so far relinquished this doctrine as to propose an amendment to the Oregon bill, extending the Missouri compromise line of 36° 80' to the Pacific, thus prohibiting slavery in the region n. of that line, and recognizing it in that s. thereof. The amend
ment prevailed in the senate, but was lost in the house of representatives. The land was now filled with excitement upon the slavery question, and the compromise meas ures of 18.50 were devised and passed as a " final settlement" of the controversy. Instead of quieting the agitation, however, they fanned it to an intenser heat. In 1852, D. was an unsuccessful candidate for the democratic nomination for president of the United States. During the congressional session of 1853-54, he reported the bill to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, the, freedom of Which from slavery was solemnly guaranteed by the Missouri compromise of 1820. This restriction Douglas now pro posed to repeal or disregard, leaving those territories under the doctrine of " squatter sovereignty," open to the introduction of slavery. The enactment of this measure cre ated intense excitement in the northern states, and D. was hotly denounced. From this time forward the question of the extension or non-extension of slavery was the para mount issue before the country—the compromise measures of 1850 proving utterly abortive as a means of stopping anti-slavery agitation. In 1856, D. was again a candi date for the presidential nomination of his party, but James Buchanan gained the nom ination. In 1858, a re-election to the senate, he engaged in a political canvass of the state of Illinois—Abraham Lincoln, the republican candidate for senator, being his antagonist. They spoke from the same platform in regular debate, upon conditions mutually agreed to, in every quarter of the state. A majority of the popular vote was cast against him, but D. carries the legislature by a small majority, and was conse quently re-elected to the senate. He was, in favor of the annexation of Cuba to the United States, and a warm champion of the Pacific railroad. In the presidential elec tion of 1860, the democratic party was divided, D. being supported by the northern and Breckinridge by the southern section. The republicans nominated and elected Abraham Lincoln. After the beginning of the war of the rebellion, D. took strong ground in favor of the union, giving his influence to uphold the general government. During his last illness, he dictated for publication a letter in which he declared it to be the duty of all patriotic men to sustain the union, the constitution, the government, and the flag, against all assailants. He was short of stature, but stoutly built, and was familiarly called "the little giant." He was endowed with qualities which gave him great power over masses of men. His first wife (1847) was Martha, daughter of col. Robert Martin of Rockingham co., N. C. ; his second, Adele, daughter of James Madison Cutts of Washington. By his first wife he had three children, the eldest of whom, Robert Martin Douglas, was for a time private secretary of president Grant.