The Life of Stephen A. Douglas | Page 5

villages and
settlements theretofore lost in the solitudes.
Finding no employment at Jacksonville, he sold his few books to keep
off hunger and walked to Winchester. On the morning after his arrival
he found a crowd assembled on the street where a public sale was about
to open. Delay was occasioned by the want of a competent clerk and he
was hired for two dollars a day to keep the record of the sale. He was
then employed to teach a private school in the town at a salary of forty
dollars a month. Besides teaching he found time to read a few borrowed
law books and try an occasional case before the village justice.
Having been admitted to the bar in March, 1834, he opened a law office
at Jacksonville. His professional career, though successful, was so
completely eclipsed by the brilliancy of his political achievements that
it need not detain us. The readiness and agility of his mind; the
adaptability of his convictions to the demands of the hour; his
self-confident energy, were such that he speedily developed into a good
trial lawyer and won high standing at the bar. That the profession was
not then as lucrative as it has since become, is evidenced by the fact
that he traveled from Springfield to Bloomington and argued a case for
a fee of five dollars.
But his time and energy were devoted to politics rather than law. The
strategy of parties interested him more than Coke or Justinian.
Jacksonville was a conservative, religious town, whose population
consisted chiefly of New England Puritans and Whigs. But the prairies
were settled by a race of thoroughly Democratic pioneers to whom the
rough victor at New Orleans was a hero in war and a master in
statecraft.
Douglas was an enthusiastic Democrat and an ardent admirer of

President Jackson. The favorite occupation of the young lawyer, not yet
harassed by clients, was to talk politics to the farmers, or gather them
into his half furnished office and discuss more gravely the questions of
party management.
A few days after his arrival the opportunity came to distinguish himself
in the field of his future achievements. A mass meeting was called at
the court house for the purpose of endorsing the policy of the President
in removing the deposits of public money from the United States bank
and vetoing the bill for its recharter. The opposition was bitter. In the
state of public temper it was a delicate task to present the resolutions.
The man who had undertaken it lost courage at the sight of the
multitude and handed them to Douglas, and the crowd looked with
amused surprise when the young stranger, who was only five feet tall,
appeared on the platform. He read the resolutions of endorsement and
supported them in a brief speech.
When he sat down, Josiah Lamborn, an old and distinguished lawyer
and politician, attacked him and the resolutions in a speech of caustic
severity. Douglas rose to reply. The people cheered the plucky
youngster. The attack had sharpened the faculties and awakened his
fighting courage. He had unexpectedly found the field of action in
which he was destined to become an incomparable master. For an hour
he poured out an impassioned harangue, without embarrassment or
hesitation. Astonishment at what seemed a quaint freak soon gave way
to respect and admiration, and at the close of this remarkable address
the hall and courtyard rang with loud applause. The excited crowed
seized the little orator, lifted him on their shoulders and bore him in
triumph around the square.
The young adventurer in the fields of law and politics was thenceforth a
man of mark--a man to be reckoned with in Illinois. There were scores
of better lawyers and more eminent politicians in the State, but a real
leader, a genuine master of men had appeared.
In January, 1835, the legislature met at Vandalia. Early in the session it
elected Douglas State's Attorney of the First Judicial District--an
extraordinary tribute to the professional or political ability of the young
lawyer of less than a year's standing. He held the office a little more
than a year and resigned to enter the legislature.
This was a really memorable body. Among its members were James

Shields, afterwards United States Senator, John Calhoun of Lecompton
fame, W. A. Richardson, afterwards Democratic leader in the House of
Representatives, John A. McClernand, destined also to distinguish
service in Congress and still more distinguished service as a major
general and rival in arms of Grant and Sherman, Abraham Lincoln, an
awkward young lawyer, from Springfield, and Douglas, whose fate it
was to give Lincoln his first national prominence and then sink eclipsed
by the rising glory of his great rival. The only memorable work of the
session was