Among the famous moments in the years leading up to the American Civil War were the “Lincoln-Douglas Debates,” which took place in August through October 1858. In the six debates that took place in various places in Illinois, where the two candidates were vying for a U.S. Senate seat, the issues that led to the Civil War were a primary focus, most importantly the issue of slavery. Douglas was an unapologetic advocate for the proposition that the Declaration of Independence—and its guarantees of personal liberties—didn’t apply to blacks, and that it should be up to the individual states whether to permit or abolish slavery within their borders. Douglas won the day, and was reelected to the Senate despite Lincoln’s strong debate performance. Douglas did not live to see whether his political views would carry the day in the Civil War that began just a few years later—he died this day on June 3, 1861 at the age of 48, a victim of typhoid fever.
While some historians have vilified Douglas for his pro-slavery stance, his life story before the famous debates would not necessarily have foretold that. He was, first of all, a New Englander, a descendant from early New England settlers (one of whom was Benedict Arnold!). Douglas was born in Vermont in 1813, and in about 1830 the family moved to New York, when Douglas was 17. As a young man he developed a taste for debating, and soon became interested in politics. He eventually found his way to Illinois, gained a law license, and began practicing law in 1834 at the age of 21. He was already a staunch Jacksonian Democrat, and almost immediately after receiving his law license he was elected to serve as the State Attorney for the First District. Two years later he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, and in 1840 he was appointed to be the Illinois Secretary of State. He finally won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1842, at the age of 29, and then was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1847—a fast track political career to be sure. During his tenure in office, his campaign themes often dwelled on matters of commerce, tariffs, and Western Expansion. But he also evinced pro-slavery tendencies when he was one of a handful of Northern congressmen to vote against the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery in lands the U.S. acquired in the U.S. war against Mexico.
Among Douglas’ most famous—or infamous—political successes was his role in the passage of the Compromise of 1850. Together with Senator Henry Clay (a Whig), Douglas crafted several pieces of legislation that effectively allowed slavery to be extended to Western territories. Specifically, the Compromise enacted several new laws:
- It approved California as a new state;
- It adopted the controversial Fugitive Slave Act
- It banned the slave trade in Washington D.C.
- It established the Utah Territory, with no prohibition on slavery (arguably superceding the provisions of the Missouri Compromise of 1820).
Douglas’ successful effort to obtain passage of the Compromise of 1850 was not the end of his pro-slavery political maneuvers, as it was Douglas who led the legislative fight over what became the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which explicitly overruled the Missouri Compromise, and authorized new states to choose whether to be slave states or not. This, Douglas argued, was consistent with his notions of “popular sovereignty,” by which it was up to the people to decide how their states should deal with the issue of slavery. Abraham Lincoln attacked Douglas in unsparing words, declaring that Douglas “has no vivid impression that the negro is human; and consequently has no idea that there can be any moral question in legislating about him.” The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a stain on American history, and on Douglas’ otherwise distinguished political career. Yet, it was only a few years later that the U.S. Supreme Court backed him up with its Dred Scott decision, in which the Court ruled that slavery could not be outlawed in federal territories.
Douglas’ other legislative efforts included approval of federal government support for the building of railroads that would connect the Western territories with East Coast markets. His early support led to the ultimately successful effort to build the Transcontinental Railroad, which wasn’t completed until 1869, years after Douglas’ death.
By 1860, Douglas was one of the most prominent Democrats in the nation, yet he was feared and despised by some factions of his own party. In the Democratic National Convention of 1860, his hopes to be nominated as the party’s candidate for the Presidency met with fierce resistance. It was only after sixty ballots that he finally received the nomination, and only after many Southern delegates walked out, leaving the more conservative Northern delegates to nominate him. In the 1860 election campaign itself, Douglas repeatedly warned voters that the election of Abraham Lincoln might lead to the secession of the Southern states. His campaigned failed, however: he lost the electoral college vote badly, despite doing well in the popular vote, and Lincoln became the 16th President of the United States. Douglas’ warnings, however, were prescient, for it was only months later that South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by the shelling of Fort Sumter in April 1861—the beginning of the Civil War. Douglas returned to Illinois, where he died just two months later, on June 3, 1861.
As for Douglas’ personal life, he married well: in 1847 he married Martha Martin, whose father bequeathed her a 2,500-acre plantation in Mississippi that Douglas acquired by marriage (and thus indirectly became a slave owner). Martha died just a few years after the marriage, leaving Douglas with 2 sons and a daughter (the daughter died shortly after Martha’s death). Douglas then married the much younger Adele Cutts, 20 years old, by whom he a daughter that only lived a few weeks. Adele outlived Douglas by almost 40 years, dying in 1899.
So today, we honor the memory of Stephen Douglas, one of the most famous politicians of his era, and a controversial figure in the history of American civil rights.
