Douglas, STEPHEN ARNOLD

Douglas, STEPHEN ARNOLD, American politician, was born at Brandon, Vermont, in 1813, and in 1834 began the practice of law at Jacksonville, Illinois. He was elected attorney-general of this state in the same year, member of the legislature in 1835, secretary of state in 1840, and judge of the supreme court in 1841. He was returned to congress in 1843-44-46, and to the United States senate in 1847-52-58. In the lower house he advocated the annexation of Texas, and of Oregon up to 54° 40' N. lat., and favoured the war with Mexico, and in the senate he opposed the ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and declared himself in favour of the acquisition of Cuba, his desire being to 'make the United States an ocean-bound republic.' On the question of slavery he maintained that the people of each territory should decide whether it should be a free state or a slave state; this was known as the doctrine of 'popular' or 'squatter sovereignty.' In 1860 he received the regular Democratic nomination for the presidency, the seceding delegates nominating John C. Breckinridge. Douglas obtained 12 electoral and 1,375,157 popular votes, as against 180 electoral and 1,866,352 popular votes cast for Lincoln, to whom, in the early days of the rebellion, he gave an unfaltering support. He died 3d June 1861, at Chicago, where an imposing monument, surmounted by a statue, has been erected. See his Life by Sheehan (New York, 1860) and Flint (Phila. 1860).