Stephen Arnold Douglas, an American statesman, born at Brandon, Vt., April 23, 1813, died in Chicago, June 3, 1861. His father, who was a physician, died when Stephen was about two months old. The widow with her children retired to a farm, on which her son resided till he was 15 years old, when he determined to earn his own living, and engaged himself as an apprentice in cabinet making. After a year and a half his health became impaired by hard work, and he abandoned the occupation. He then attended Brandon academy a year. His mother about this time married Mr. Granger of Ontario co., N. Y., and young Douglas removed with her to Canandaigua and entered the academy at that place. He studied law at the same time that he pursued his academical course, and in the spring of 1833 went to the west. At Jacksonville, 111., he found his funds reduced to 37 1/2 cents, and accordingly walked to Winchester, 16 miles, where he hoped to get employment as a teacher. He found there a large crowd assembled to attend an auction. The auctioneer was without a clerk, and perceiving that Douglas, who stood among the spectators, looked like a man who could keep accounts, requested him to serve in that capacity.

He acted as clerk during the three days of the sale, and received $6 for his services. "With this capital he opened a school, and obtained 40 pupils, whom he taught for three months, devoting his evenings to the study of law, and on Saturday afternoons practising in petty cases. In March, 1834, he opened an office and began practice in the higher courts, having been admitted to the bar. He was remarkably successful, and within a year from his admission, while not yet 22 years of age, was elected by the legislature attorney general of the state. This office he resigned in December, 1835, in consequence of having been elected to the legislature. He took his seat in the house of representatives, the youngest member of that body. In 1837 he was appointed by President Van Buren register of the land office at Springfield, 111., a post which he resigned in 1839. In November, 1837, he received the democratic nomination for con-gress, although he was under the requisite age of 25 years, Which however he attained before the day of election in the following August. His congressional district was then the most populous in the United States, and the canvass was conducted with extraordinary zeal and energy.

More than 36,000 votes were cast, and the whig candidate was declared elected by a majority of only five votes. After this defeat Douglas devoted himself exclusively to his profession till 1840, when he entered into the famous presidential campaign of that year with much ardor. In December, 1840, he was appointed secretary of state of Illinois. In the following February he was elected by the legislature a judge of the supreme court, which office he resigned in 1843 to accept the democratic nomination for congress. He was chosen by upward of 400 majority, and was reelected in 1844 and in 1846. But before taking his seat under the last election he was chosen to the senate of the United States for six years from March 4, 1847. In the house of representatives he was prominent among those who, in the Oregon controversy with Great Britain, maintained that our title to the whole of Oregon up to lat. 54° 40' was "clear and unquestionable." He declared that " he never would, now or hereafter, yield up one inch of Oregon, either to Great Britain or any other government." He advocated the policy of giving notice to terminate the joint occupation; of establishing a territorial government over Oregon, protected by a sufficient military force; and of putting the country at once in a state of preparation, so that if war should result from the assertion of our just rights, we might drive "Great Britain and the last vestiges of royal authority from the continent of North America, and make the United States an ocean-bound republic." He was among the earliest advocates of the annexation of Texas, and after the treaty for that object had failed in the senate, he was one of those who introduced propositions, in the form of joint resolutions, as a substitute for it.

As chairman of the committee on territories in 1846 he reported the joint resolution declaring Texas to be one of the United States of America, and he vigorously sustained the administration of President Polk in the prosecution of the war with Mexico, which was the ultimate consequence of that act. As chairman of the territorial committee, first in the house of representatives and afterward in the senate, he reported and carried through the bills to organize the territories of Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, Kansas, and Nebraska, and also the bills for the admission into the Union of the states of Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, and Oregon. On the question of slavery in the territories he early took the position that congress should not interfere on the one side or the other, but that the people of each territory and state should be allowed to regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves. In accordance with this principle he opposed the "Wilmot proviso" when first passed in the house of representatives in 1847, and afterward in the senate when offered as an amendment to the bill for the organization of the territory of Oregon. In August, 1848, however, he offered an amendment to the Oregon bill, extending the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific ocean, thus prohibiting slavery in all the territory north of the parallel of 36° 30', and by implication recognizing its existence south of that line.

This amendment was adopted in the senate by a decided majority, receiving the support of every southern together with several northern senators, but was defeated in the house of representatives by nearly a sectional vote. The refusal of the senate to adopt the policy of congressional prohibition of slavery in all the territories, and the rejection in the house of representatives of the proposition to extend the Missouri compromise to the Pacific ocean, gave rise to the sectional agitation of 1849-'50, which was temporarily quieted by the legislation known as the compromise measures of 1850. Mr. Douglas supported these measures; and on his return to his home in Chicago, finding them assailed with great violence, he defended the whole series in a speech (Oct. 24, 1850) in which he defined the principles on which the compromise acts of 1850 were founded, and upon which he subsequently defended the Kansas-Nebraska bill in these words: "These measures are predicated on the great fundamental principle that every people ought to possess the right of framing and regulating their own internal concerns and domestic institutions in their own way.....These things are all confided by the constitution to each state to decide for itself, and I know of no reason why the same principle should not be extended to the territories." Mr. Douglas was an unsuccessful candidate before the democratic national convention at Baltimore in 1852 for the nomination for the presidency.

On the 30th ballot he received 92 votes, the highest number given to any candidate on that ballot, out of a total of 288 votes. At the congressional session of 1853-'4 he reported the celebrated bill to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which effectually revolutionized political parties in the United States, and formed the issues upon which the democratic and republican parties became arrayed against each other. The passage of this bill caused great excitement in the free states of the Union, and Mr. Douglas as its author was widely and vehemently denounced, and in many places was hanged and burned in effigy. The whole controversy turned on the provision repealing the Missouri compromise, which he maintained was inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by congress with slavery in states and territories. After repealing the Missouri restriction, the bill declared it to be the "true intent and meaning of the act, not to legislate slavery into any state or territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States." In 1856 he was again a candidate for the presidental nomination before the democratic convention at Cincinnati. The highest vote he received was on the 16th ballot, which stood for Buchanan 168, for Douglas 121, for Cass 6. In the congressional session of 1857-'8 he denounced and opposed the Lecompton constitution, on the ground that it was not the act of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their will.

Before the adjournment of that session he returned home to vindicate his action before the people of Illinois in one of the most exciting and well contested political canvasses ever known in the United States, his antagonist on the stump being Abraham Lincoln, who was then the republican candidate for senator. The popular vote at the subsequent election was adverse to Mr. Douglas, but he succeeded in carrying the election of a sufficient number of state senators and representatives to secure his return to the United States senate by 54 votes for him to 46 for Lincoln. - Mr. Douglas was remarkably successful in promoting the local interests of his own state during his congressional career. To him, more than to any other individual, is Illinois indebted for the magnificent grant of lands which secured the construction of the Illinois Central railroad, and contributed so much to restore the credit and develop the resources of the state. He was a warm supporter and advocate of a railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean. In foreign policy he opposed the treaty with England limiting the Oregon territory to the 49th parallel, contending that England had no rights on that coast, and that the United States should never recognize her claim.

He also opposed the ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and endeavored to procure its rejection, on the ground, among others, that it pledged the faith of the United States for all time to come never to annex, colonize, or exercise dominion over any portion of Central America. He maintained that the isthmus routes must be kept open as highways to the American possessions on the Pacific, that the time would come when the United States would be compelled to occupy Central America, and that he would never pledge the faith of the republic not to do in the future in respect to this continent what its interests and safety might require. He also declared himself in favor of the acquisition of Cuba whenever the island could be obtained consistently with the laws of nations and the honor of the United States. - In 1860 he was the candidate of the northern section of the democratic party for the presidency, Mr. Breckinridge being supported by the southern section. Mr. Douglas received a popular vote of upward of 1,300,000, though he got only 12 electoral votes, while Mr. Lincoln, who was elected, got 180. In the stormy discussions in the senate at the beginning of the civil war Mr. Douglas took a prominent part in support of the government and the Union. In his speeches to the people after the adjournment of congress, 'he denounced secession as crime and madness, and declared that if the new system of resistance by the sword and bayonet to the result of the ballot box shall prevail in this country, " the history of the United States is already written in the history of Mexico." In a letter dictated for publication during his last illness, dated May 10, 1861, he said but one course was left to patriotic men, and that was to sustain the Union, the constitution, the government, and the flag, against all assailants.

On his deathbed his last coherent words expressed an ardent wish for the honor and prosperity of his country and the defeat and dispersion of her enemies. - Mr. Douglas was a strongly built man, somewhat below the middle height, and hence was popularly known as "the little giant." He was a powerful speaker, and few Americans have surpassed him in personal influence over the mass of the people. He was married, April 7, 1847, to Martha, daughter of Col. Robert Martin of Rockingham co., N. C, by whom he had three children, two of whom are living, and the eldest of whom, Robert Martin Douglas, is now (1873) private secretary to President Grant. She died Jan. 19, 1853. He was again married, Nov. 20, 1856, to Adele, daughter of James Madison Cutts of Washington, D. C, who survived him, and is now the wife of Gen. Robert Williams, U. S. A. Senator Douglas's life, by James W. Sheahan, was published in 1860.