Stephen A. Douglas | Page 8

young lawyer.
The political situation in Morgan County, as the State election
approached, is not altogether clear. President Jackson's high-handed
acts, particularly his attitude toward the National Bank, had alarmed
many men who had supported him in 1832. There were defections in
the ranks of the Democracy. The State elections would surely turn on
national issues. The Whigs were noisy, assertive, and confident.
Largely through the efforts of Brooks and Douglass, the Democrats of

Jacksonville were persuaded to call a mass-meeting of all good
Democrats in the county. It was on this occasion, very soon after his
arrival in town, that Douglass made his début on the political stage.
It is said that accident brought the young lawyer into prominence at this
meeting. A well-known Democrat who was to have presented
resolutions, demurred, at the last minute, and thrust the copy into
Douglass' hands, bidding him read them. The Court House was full to
overflowing with interested observers of this little by-play. Excitement
ran high, for the opposition within the party was vehement in its protest
to cut-and-dried resolutions commending Jackson. An older man with
more discretion and modesty, would have hesitated to face the audience;
but Douglass possessed neither retiring modesty nor the sobriety which
comes with years. He not only read the resolutions, but he defended
them with such vigorous logic and with such caustic criticism of Whigs
and half-hearted Democrats, that he carried the meeting with him in
tumultuous approval of the course of Andrew Jackson, past and
present.[39]
The next issue of the Patriot, the local Whig paper, devoted two
columns to the speech of this young Democratic upstart; and for weeks
thereafter the editor flayed him on all possible occasions. The result
was such an enviable notoriety for the young attorney among Whigs
and such fame among Democrats, that he received collection demands
to the amount of thousands of dollars from persons whom he had never
seen or known. In after years, looking back on these beginnings, he
used to wonder whether he ought not to have paid the editor of the
Patriot for his abuse, according to the usual advertising rates.[40] The
political outcome was not in every respect so gratifying. The
Democratic county ticket was elected and a Democratic congressman
from the district; but the Whigs elected their candidate for governor.
A factional quarrel among members of his own party gave Douglass his
reward for services to the cause of Democracy, and his first political
office. Captain John Wyatt nursed a grudge against John J. Hardin,
Esq., who had been elected State's attorney for the district through his
influence, but who had subsequently proved ungrateful. Wyatt had been

re-elected member of the legislature, however, in spite of Hardin's
opposition, and now wished to revenge himself, by ousting Hardin
from his office. With this end in view, Wyatt had Douglass draft a bill
making the State's attorneys elective by the legislature, instead of
subject to the governor's appointment. Since the new governor was a
Whig, he could not be used by the Democrats. The bill met with bitter
opposition, for it was alleged that it had no other purpose than to vacate
Hardin's office for the benefit of Douglass. This was solemnly
denied;[41] but when the bill had been declared unconstitutional by the
Council of Revision, Douglass' friends made desperate exertions to
pass the bill over the veto, with the now openly avowed purpose to
elect him to the office. The bill passed, and on the 10th of February,
1835, the legislature in joint session elected the boyish lawyer State's
attorney for the first judicial district, by a majority of four votes over an
attorney of experience and recognized merit. It is possible, as Douglass
afterward averred, that he neither coveted the office nor believed
himself fitted for it; and that his judgment was overruled by his friends.
But he accepted the office, nevertheless.
When Douglas,--for he had now begun to drop the superfluous s in the
family name, for simplicity's sake,[42]--set out on his judicial circuit,
he was not an imposing figure. There was little in his boyish face to
command attention, except his dark-blue, lustrous eyes. His big head
seemed out of proportion to his stunted figure. He measured scarcely
over five feet and weighed less than a hundred and ten pounds. Astride
his horse, he looked still more diminutive. His mount was a young
horse which he had borrowed. He carried under his arm a single book,
also loaned, a copy of the criminal law.[43] His chief asset was a large
fund of Yankee shrewdness and good nature.
An amusing incident occurred in McLean County at the first court
which Douglas attended. There were many indictments to be drawn,
and the new prosecuting attorney, in his haste, misspelled the name of
the county--M