Stephen A. Douglas

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Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen Arnold Douglas (born April 23, 1813 in Brandon , Rutland County , Vermont , † June 3, 1861 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American politician and presidential candidate in 1860. He also represented the state of Illinois in both chambers of Congress .

Life

His father, a doctor, died the year Stephen Douglas was born. He grew up with his uncle until he was 14 years old, before he married and from then on he had to provide for his own living. Douglas began training as a cabinet maker in Middlebury and then studied law .

In 1833 he settled in Winchester (Illinois) and opened a school there that gave him the means to continue his legal studies. In March 1834 he was admitted to the bar and got a job as an administrator at the Illinois Supreme Court. From 1835 he worked as a public prosecutor. From 1836 to 1837 he was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives ; he also worked for the Land Office in Springfield .

After an initial unsuccessful candidacy for the US House of Representatives in 1838, he was appointed to the Illinois government as Secretary of State shortly thereafter ; he was also elected judge on the state's Supreme Court . In 1842 he won the election to Congressman, after which he was a member of the House of Representatives from March 4, 1843 to March 3, 1847. He resigned after he had succeeded in entering the US Senate , which he subsequently belonged to until his death. An energetic and fiery speaker, he held an influential position in the Senate. He promoted the conquest of Texas and the Mexican-American War , asserted the United States' rights to the Oregon territory against England with great determination, and was chairman and rapporteur of a committee that worked to expand the territory of the United States to the west and create new ones To include states in the Union. Because of his small height and his energetic demeanor, he was nicknamed Little Giant .

Standing firmly on the side of the Southern States and the Democratic Party on the question of slavery , he ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1852, but had to admit defeat to Franklin Pierce . In January 1854 he submitted the Kansas-Nebraska Act to Congress , which proposed the creation of the two new states Kansas and Nebraska , in which the decision of the slave question should be left to the population. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was amended on May 31st and passed after heated debate. James Buchanan , to whom he was defeated as a candidate for the Democratic presidency in 1856, tried to impose a constitution on the people of Kansas that introduced slavery against the will of the majority. Douglas, who was principally a defender of the independence of the individual states, criticized this plan and thereby lost sympathy among the Democrats in the southern states, but won that of the northern states, whose help he could use in the upcoming elections in 1860.

In 1860, Douglas ran for the third time as a presidential candidate. Although the majority voted for him at the Democratic National Convention in Charleston , the representatives of the South, embittered by his behavior on the Kansas question, refused to accept the majority decision and left the meeting. Although the Democratic delegates of the northern states in Baltimore almost unanimously nominated Douglas as the party's candidate, those of the southern states persisted in their opposition and nominated their own candidate with John C. Breckinridge , which split the votes of the Democrats and the victory of the Republicans was brought about. Although Douglas was defeated by Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election, he was loyal to the Union when the southern states fell. Lincoln named him major general in the army shortly before his death. Douglas died of typhus in Chicago on June 3, 1861 .

See also: → Lincoln-Douglas Debates # Literature

Honor

Several counties in the United States were named after Stephen A. Douglas :

The cities of Douglas and Douglasville in Georgia and Douglas in Wyoming also received their names in his honor.

literature

Web links

Commons : Stephen A. Douglas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Stephen A. Douglas  - Quotes
  • Stephen A. Douglas in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
personal data
SURNAME Douglas, Stephen A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Douglas, Stephen Arnold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Brandon , Vermont
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 1861
Place of death Chicago , Illinois