The Life of Stephen A. Douglas | Page 6

the removal of the Capital from Vandalia to Springfield,
and the authorization of twelve millions of debt, to be contracted for
government improvements.
Douglas, who had opposed these extravagant appropriations, having
distinguished himself as a debater, an organizer and a leader, was, a
few days after the adjournment, appointed Register of the United States
Land Office at Springfield, to which place he at once removed.
In the following November he was nominated for Congress. The
district, which included the entire northern part of the State, was large
enough for an empire, with sparse population and wretched means of
communication. The campaign lasted nine months, during which,
having resigned the office of the Register, he devoted himself to the
task of riding over the prairies, interviewing the voters and speaking in
school houses and village halls. The monotony was relieved by the
society of the rival candidate, John T. Stuart, who as Lincoln's law
partner. Stuart was declared elected by a doubtful majority of five, and
Douglas, after soothing his wounded feelings by apparently well
founded charges of an unfair count and threats of a contest, abandoned
it in disgust and returned to his law office. He announced his
determination to quit politics forever.
But in December, 1838, the legislature began a session at the old
Capital. The Governor declared the office of Secretary of State vacant
and appointed John A. McClernand to fill it. Field, the incumbent,
questioned the power of the Governor to remove him and declined to
surrender the office. Quo warranto proceedings were instituted by
McClernand, with Douglas and others as counsel. The Supreme Court
denied the Governor's power of removal. The Court became involved
in the partisan battle which raged with genuine Western fervor for two
years.

In the early weeks of 1841, a bill was passed, reorganizing the
Judiciary, providing for the election by the legislature of five additional
Supreme Judges, and imposing the duties of trial Judges upon the
members of the Court. Meanwhile, Field had grown weary of the
struggle with a hostile Governor and legislature, and, being threatened
with a sweeping change of the Court, resigned in January, 1841. The
Governor appointed Douglas his successor. Five weeks later the
legislature chose him Justice of the Supreme Court and presiding Judge
of the Fifth District. He resigned the office of Secretary and began his
judicial career, establishing his residence at Quincy.
This appointment to the bench was one of the most fortunate incidents
in his busy and feverish life. He was not twenty-eight years old. Adroit,
nimble-witted and irrepressibly energetic as he was, he had not yet
developed much solid strength. His stock of knowledge was scanty and
superficial. From force of circumstances he had devoted little time to
calm thought or serious study. Early convinced that all truth lay on the
surface, patent to him who had eyes to see, he had plunged into the
storm of life and, by his aggressive and overmastering energy, had
conquered a place for himself in the world. He was an experienced
politician, a famous campaign orator, and a Justice of the Supreme
Court at a period when most boys are awkwardly finding their way into
the activities of the world. The younger Pitt was Chancellor of the
Exchequer at twenty-three; but he was the son of Chatham, nurtured in
statesmanship from the cradle. the younger Adams was Minister to the
Hague at twenty-five; but he was already a ripe scholar and heir to his
father's great fame. Douglas was a penniless adventurer, a novus homo,
with none of those accidents of fortune which sometimes give early
success to gifted men.
The opportunity afforded the young Judge to extend his knowledge and
mingle on terms of equality with the masters of his profession was such
as rarely falls to the lot of a half-educated man of twenty-eight. He did
not become an eminent Judge, yet he left the bench, after three years'
service, with marked improvement in the solidity and dignity of his
character.

Chapter III.

Member of Congress.

The legislature met in December, 1842, to chose a Senator. Douglas
still lacked six months of the thirty years required, but came within five
votes of the election.
In the following spring he received the Democratic nomination for
Congress and resigned his judgeship to enter the campaign. The
District included eleven large counties in the western part of the State.
O. H. Browning of Quincy, a lawyer of ability, destined to a
distinguished political career and to succeed to Douglas' vacant seat in
the Senate twenty years later, was the Whig candidate. They held a
long series of joint discussions, addressed scores of audiences and so
exhausted themselves that both were prostrated with serious sickness
after the campaign. The questions discussed are as completely obsolete
as the