Stephen Arnold Douglas (23 April 1813 – 3 June 1861) was an American politician from Illinois. He was a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee for President in the 1860 election, losing to Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in a Senate contest, noted for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. He was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because though short in physical stature, he was a forceful and even dominant figure in politics.
Douglas was well known as a resourceful party leader, and an adroit, ready, skillful tactician in debate and passage of legislation. He was a leading proponent of democracy, and believed in the principle of popular sovereignty: that the majority of citizens should decide contentious issues such as slavery and territorial expansion. As chairman of the Committee on Territories, Douglas dominated the Senate in the 1850s. He was largely responsible for the Compromise of 1850 that apparently settled slavery issues. However, in 1854 he reopened the slavery question with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened some previously prohibited territories to slavery under popular sovereignty. Opposition to this led to the formation of the Republican Party.
Douglas initially endorsed the Dred Scott decision of 1857. But during the 1858 Senate campaign, he argued its effect could be negated by popular sovereignty.[1] He also opposed the efforts of President James Buchanan and his Southern allies to enact a Federal slave code and impose the Lecompton Constitution on Kansas.
In 1860, the conflict over slavery led to the split in the Democratic Party in the 1860 Convention. Hardline pro-slavery Southerners rejected Douglas, and nominated their own candidate, Vice President John C. Breckinridge, while the Northern Democrats nominated Douglas. Douglas deeply believed in democracy, arguing the will of the people should always be decisive.[2] When civil war came in April 1861, he rallied his supporters to the Union with all his energies, but he died a few weeks later.
He was born Arnold Douglass in Brandon, Vermont[3] to Stephen Arnold Douglass and Sarah Fisk. Douglas dropped the second "s" from his name some years later.[4]
He migrated to Winchester, Illinois in 1833, where he served as an itinerant teacher and opened a school for three months at three dollars a pupil.[5] He also studied law, and settled in Jacksonville, Illinois. By the end of the year, he wrote his Vermont relatives, "I have become a Western man, have imbibed Western feelings principles and interests and have selected Illinois as the favorite place of my adoption."
Adele Cutts, c. 1855-1865
Douglas briefly courted Mary Todd (who married Abraham Lincoln instead). Douglas became a member of the Masonic fraternity in Springfield Lodge No. 4 in Springfield, Illinois in 1839. He was a member of several Masonic organizations in Springfield.
In March 1847 he married Martha Martin, the 21-year-old daughter of wealthy Colonel Robert Martin and his wife of North Carolina. The year after their marriage, her father died and bequeathed Martha a 2500-acre cotton plantation with 100 slaves on the Pearl River in Lawrence County, Mississippi.[6] He appointed Douglas the property manager but, as a senator of the free state of Illinois, and with presidential aspirations, Douglas found the Southern plantation presented difficulties. He created distance by hiring a manager to operate the plantation, while using his allocated 20 percent of the income to advance his political career.[7] His sole lengthy visit to Mississippi was in 1848, and he made only brief emergency trips thereafter.[8]
The newlyweds moved their Illinois home from Springfield to fast-growing Chicago in the summer of 1847. They had two sons: Robert M. Douglas (January 1849-1917) and Stephen Arnold Douglas, Jr., (November 1850-1908). Martha Douglas died young on January 19, 1853, after the birth of her third child, a daughter. The girl died a few weeks later, and Douglas and the boys were bereft.[8]
On 20 November 1856, Douglas married a second time, to 20-year-old Adele Cutts, another southern woman. She was the daughter of James Madison Cutts of Washington, D.C., nephew of President James Madison. Her great-aunt was the former U.S. First Lady Dolley Madison. As her mother was from a Maryland Catholic family, Adele Cutts was Catholic.[8] With Stephen's approval, she had his two sons baptized as Catholic and reared in that faith.[6]
She had a miscarriage in 1858 and became ill. The following year, Adele gave birth to a daughter, Ellen, who lived only a few weeks, and the mother was left weakened by childbirth.[6]
Douglas was appointed as State's Attorney of Morgan County in 1834, serving until 1836. In the next few years, Douglas became a leader of the dominant Illinois Democrats. He was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, was appointed registrar of the Springfield Land Office, became Illinois Secretary of State, and was appointed an associate justice of the Illinois Supreme Court in 1841, at age 27.[9]
He resigned from the Court upon being elected US Representative in 1842, and was re-elected in 1844. In Congress, he championed territorial expansion and supported the Mexican War. In 1846 he was elected US Senator.
In the sectional crisis of 1850, Douglas was one of the strongest advocates of compromise. He supported the proposals of Henry Clay, despite their partisan differences (Clay was a Whig). But Clay's "omnibus" bill for the Compromise of 1850 was defeated - there being a majority who were opposed to various parts of it. Douglas stepped in and divided the parts of the Compromise into separate bills, each of which had majority support, though a different majority for each, and thus the Compromise was passed.[10]
By 1852, he was considered one of the Democrats' national leaders. He contended for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1852, but was passed over for "dark horse" Franklin Pierce.[11]
Douglas was easily reelected to the Senate in 1853. An avid promoter of railroad expansion, he devised the land grant system to fund the Illinois Central railroad. He intended it to link the nation north and south, from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico; Douglas hoped that would more thoroughly integrate the regional economies and reduce sectional tensions. The railroad was begun, but its southern extension was interrupted by the Civil War. It did not reach the Gulf until afterward. Douglas owned land in Chicago which the railroad would make more valuable, but his primary motivation was political.[12]
Douglas always had a deep and abiding faith in democracy. "Let the people rule!" was his cry, and he insisted that the people locally could and should make the decisions about slavery, rather than the national government.
While never a religious man, he was an eager promoter of Chicago.[clarification needed] He donated 10 acres of his lakefront property, worth $50,000, to a small new Baptist college, the first University of Chicago. Critics said that he wanted to enhance the value of his adjoining lots.[13]
Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler An 1856 cartoon depicts a giant
"Free Soiler" being held down by
James Buchanan and
Lewis Cass standing on the Democratic platform marked "
Kansas", "
Cuba" and "
Central America". Franklin Pierce also holds down the giant's beard as Douglas shoves a black man down his throat.
Douglas set off a tremendous political upheaval with the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Nebraska Territory, west of Missouri, was then being settled, and Congress needed to provide territorial organization for the region. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery there (because it was north of the 36°30' compromise line), and the Compromise of 1850 had reaffirmed this.
At this time, various proposals for a transcontinental railroad to California had been offered. One was for a southern route, from New Orleans; another was for a central route, from Chicago. Douglas owned Chicago real estate, expected to boom if the central route was adopted.
Southern leaders proposed a deal: they would support the central route if slavery was permitted in the new Territories. Douglas agreed. In the first version of the Act, Douglas allowed for the Territories to choose slave or free status at statehood, but the Southerners demanded immediate permission for slavery there (an implicit repeal of that part of the Missouri and 1850 Compromises). Douglas discovered a "clerical error", and revised the Act to suit.[14]
This action was initially highly unpopular in the North. Douglas joked that he could travel from Washington back to Illinois by the light of burning effigies of him.
But he responded with a principled argument which won over many of his critics. He invoked "popular sovereignty", the doctrine that the people of a community were rightfully entitled to decide such issues for themselves.[15]
Douglas argued that therefore, the people of a Territory should decide whether to permit or exclude slavery, not Congress. He also asserted that the soil and climate of the Territories was unsuitable for slave agriculture anyway, which reassured northerners. Douglas defended applying popular sovereignty as consistent with American democratic tradition, and said it would remove the slavery issue from national politics, where it threatened to rip the nation apart. Douglas thus regained most of his support in the North.
"Free-soil" and anti-slavery Northerners remained critical. Among them was Abraham Lincoln, who attacked Douglas in three major public speeches, most notably at Peoria on 16 October 1854.
Congress passed the Act by the votes of some Northern Democrats and of all Southerners, Democrat and Whig alike; Douglas had little to do with the final text. This was the first appearance of the Solid South. Opponents of the Act saw it as a triumph for the hated Slave Power. The Whig Party dissolved; anti-slavery Northern Whigs formed the Republican Party instead, joined by many "free-soil" Democrats.[16] There was a Senate election in Illinois in 1855: Republicans and dissident Democrats elected "Anti-Nebraska" Democrat Lyman Trumbull, a clear rebuke to Douglas.
In 1856, Douglas was again a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and received strong support at the convention, but again was passed over. When the Know Nothing movement arose, he crusaded against it, but privately welcomed it as a split in the former Whig opposition.
Douglas continued to steer a middle course on the slavery issue. His "popular sovereignty" doctrine that slavery should be decided on locally by states and territories was satisfactory to Southerners who didn't want outside interference with slavery and Northerners who didn't want to take sides over it. It was famously said of him that he didn't care "whether slavery was voted up or voted down," as long it was voted on by the people.
Then in 1857, the US Supreme Court issued the Dred Scott decision, which declared that under the Constitution, neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature created by Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in a Territory. This struck down key elements of the Missouri and 1850 Compromises, made the Kansas-Nebraska Act irrelevant, and denied the basis of "popular sovereignty".
Pro-slavery Southerners had praised Douglas for relaxing restrictions on slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Act; now, ardent pro-slavery "Fire-Eaters" denounced him for supporting any restrictions at all. At the same time, some Northerners, seeing "popular sovereignty" apparently dead, went over to the Republicans.
Douglas faced an ugly dilemma. If he rejected Dred Scott, he would lose Southern support he needed for the presidential election of 1860. If he embraced Dred Scott, he would lose northern support. He tried to avoid both hazards, issuing a tepid endorsement of the decision, while continuing to assert popular sovereignty without explicitly saying the Court was wrong.
Another issue came up at this time, and here Douglas did take a side. President James Buchanan and his Southern allies tried to get Kansas admitted as a slave state. But the anti-slavery majority in Kansas rejected this, despite efforts to rig the voting there.
Douglas strongly opposed Buchanan's machinations, and the two became bitter enemies. Even his Republican critics praised him for this stand, and he restored his standing with the moderates of the North.[17] This was critically important, because his Senate term ended in 1859, and he wanted to be re-elected.
U.S. Postage, 1958 issue, commemorating the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
The Illinois legislature elected in 1858 would elect a US Senator in 1859: either Douglas or a Republican challenger. Thus the legislative election became a proxy for the Senate election, with both parties emphasizing their Senate candidates above all other issues.
The Democrats of course named Douglas; the Republicans named Lincoln. Douglas tried to avoid meeting Lincoln directly. He traveled the state, making speeches for the Democrat ticket. (Douglas was provided with a private train by the Illinois Central, through his friend, IC vice-president and future Civil War general George McClellan.) Lincoln followed Douglas around the state, answering each Douglas speech with one of his own a day or two later.
After several such incidents, Douglas agreed to seven formal joint appearances, now known as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
In the debates, Douglas reiterated his support of popular sovereignty. He demanded to know whether Lincoln would ever vote to admit a new slave state, even if the majority of settlers favored slavery. He denounced Lincoln for his insistence that slavery was a moral issue that had to be resolved by the nation as a whole. Douglas described this as causing an unnecessary conflict between free and slave states, which threatened to boil up into disunion and war. He also asserted that Lincoln supported civil and social equality between the races, and insinuated that Lincoln even accepted racial intermarriage.
At Galesburg, Douglas explicitly declared that the Declaration of Independence was not meant to apply to non-whites. He said "This Government was made by our fathers on the white basis ... made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever," he said.[18]
Douglas also emphasized his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution and alluded to the hostility of the Buchanan Administration. (Buchanan had used Federal patronage to form an anti-Douglas faction of Illinois Democrats. This group, known as "Danites", ran their own candidates for the legislature.)
For his part, Lincoln criticized Douglas for his moral indifference to slavery, but denied any intention of interference with slavery in the South. He evaded Douglas' question about the admission of a slave state. He also suggested that, despite the public break between Douglas and Buchanan over Kansas, Douglas, Buchanan, and Chief Justice Taney worked together to extend and perpetuate slavery.
Lincoln disclaimed the radical views on racial equality attributed to him by Douglas, arguing only for the right of Negroes to personal liberty and to earn their own livings.[19]
Both men attacked each other for allegedly extreme or irresponsible statements by supporters or colleagues, and accused each other of bad faith in denying responsibility for such statements or for inconsistency in their own statements.
Most importantly, however, Lincoln forced Douglas to commit himself on the question of Dred Scott versus popular sovereignty. In the second debate, at Freeport, he asked a direct question: "Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way ... exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?"
If Douglas answered "No", he would fully endorse Dred Scott, and would alienate Illinoisans and other Northerners. If he answered "Yes", he would reject Dred Scott, and would alienate Southerners.
Douglas made one last attempt to square the circle. He declared that while the Supreme Court had barred explicit prohibition of slavery, that didn't really matter, because the people of a Territory could exclude slavery in practice by "unfriendly legislation". This was the Freeport Doctrine.
It was enough to satisfy Illinoisans, even in many former Know-Nothing strongholds. In the 1858 legislative elections, the Democrats won a narrow majority of seats, and Douglas was re-elected by a vote of 54 to 46. Republican candidates actually received more votes statewide, but the districts had been laid out per the Census of 1850, At that time, Republican areas in northern Illinois were much less settled and so received fewer seats. The pro-Buchanan "Danite" candidates got only a handful of votes.
The Freeport Doctrine was vehmently rejected by most Southerners. The "Fire-Eaters" denounced Douglas as no better than an abolitionist.
The debates were redefining republicanism. Lincoln advocated equality of opportunity, arguing that individuals and society advanced together. Douglas embraced a democratic doctrine that emphasized equality of all citizens (only whites were citizens), in which individual merit and social mobility was not a main goal.[20]
Douglas was the obvious nominee for the Democrats in the election of 1860, despite the opposition of President Buchanan. Although Douglas was not reappointed chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, his allies defeated Buchanan for control of the party throughout the North, and in early 1860 he was the front runner for the nomination.[17]
Political cartoon from 1860 depicting Stephen A. Douglas receiving a spanking from
Columbia as
Uncle Sam looks on approvingly.
However, Douglas faced implacable opposition in the Deep South. When the 1860 Democratic National Convention met in Charleston, South Carolina, on 23 April, Douglas supporters included half of the delegates, but very few from the South. Many Southerners openly predicted the collapse of the party and the election of Republican front-runner William H. Seward.
The Southern-controlled platform committee explicitly endorsed Dred Scott, and called for Congreess to enact a slave code for all the Territories. (That is, Federal law prohibiting any Freeport-style "hostile legislation" by any Territory, and committing Federal authority to protect slavery there.) Douglas supporters responded that with such a platform, they would lose every Northern state. The Convention adopted the committee's minority report, which evaded Dred Scott and rejected a slave code, prompting 50 delegates from seven Southern states to withdraw.
The remaining delegates now voted on a Presidential nominee. Douglas received just over 150 votes out of 250 cast, but the Convention's rules required a 2/3 majority for a nomination, and chairman Caleb Cushing ruled that 2/3 of the entire convention was needed. After 57 ballots, the convention adjourned on 3 May.
The convention reconvened on 18 June in Baltimore, Maryland. After replacement delegates were seated in place of some of the withdrawn delegates, most of the remaining Southerners withdrew. The delegates overruled Cushing and Douglas was nominated by 190 1/2 votes of 203 1/2 cast.
The bolted Southern Democrats nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge. Some former Whigs formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell.
During the subsequent campaign, Douglas broke an unwritten rule by campaigning in person. From the first Presidential election, that had been considered beneath the dignity of a Presidential candidate.
But Douglas, seeing the dangers facing the country, went on speaking tours across the country. Douglas campaigned energetically, attacking abolitionism in the North, and disunionism in the South.
In early October, Republicans won state elections in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Douglas told his secretary "Mr. Lincoln is the next President. We must try to save the Union. I will go south." He went to the South to rally Unionist sentiment.[21]
He made no compromises. At Raleigh, North Carolina, he said "I am in favor of executing in good faith every clause and provision of the Constitution and protecting every right under it - and then hanging every man who takes up arms against it!" (While this was clearly directed at Southern secessionists, it also included by clear implication the anti-slavery activists who resisted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.)[22]
Despite the vigor of his campaign, Douglas was defeated. He received 1,376,957 popular votes (second at 29%), but only 12 electoral votes (fourth and last at 4%), with Lincoln receiving 180. The support for Douglas in the North came from the Irish Catholics and the poorer farmers; in the South, the Irish Catholics were his main supporters.[17]
Douglas urged the South to acquiesce to Lincoln's election, and tried to arrange a compromise which would avert secession. As late as Christmas 1860, he wrote to Alexander H. Stephens and offered to support the annexation of Mexico as slave territory.[23]
Douglas denounced secession as criminal; he was one of the strongest advocates of maintaining the integrity of the Union at all hazards.
After the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Lincoln decided to proclaim a state of rebellion and call for 75,000 troops to suppress it. Douglas looked over the proclamation before it was issued and endorsed it completely. He suggested only one change: Lincoln should call for 200,000 troops, not just 75,000. "You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as well as I do," he said. [24]
At Lincoln's request, he undertook a mission to the Border States and to the Midwest to rouse the spirit of Unionism; he spoke in Virginia, Ohio and Illinois.
Douglas died in Chicago from typhoid fever on 3 June 1861. He was buried on the shore of Lake Michigan. After his death, Douglas's friends created the Douglas Monument Association. Leonard Volk, a prominent sculptor, was commissioned to design the monument. The Memorial and tomb were completed in 1881.[25]
For a century and a half, historians have debated whether Douglas opposed slavery,[26] and whether he was a compromiser or a devotee of principles.[27]
Douglas married into a slaveholding family (as did Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant), but the issue is whether he supported slavery as a matter of public policy. In his "Freeport Doctrine" of 1858, he repeatedly said that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down, but only that the people had the right to vote it up or down. He denounced as sacrilegious the petitions signed by thousands of clergymen in 1854, who said the Nebraska Act offended God's will.[28] He rejected the Republican notions that slavery was condemned by a "higher law" (Seward's position) or that the nation could not long survive as half slave and half free (Lincoln's position). He disagreed with the US Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that Congress had no ability to regulate slavery in the territories. When Buchanan supported the Lecompton Constitution and the pro-slavery position on Kansas, Douglas fought him in a long battle that gained Douglas the 1860 Democratic nomination but ripped his party apart.
The historian Allan Nevins was harsh on Douglas, writing "When it [slavery] paid it was good, and when it did not pay it was bad." Nevins assessed that Douglas did not "regard a slaveholding society as one whit inferior to a free society." He criticized what he called Douglas's "dim moral perceptions."[29]
Graham Peck finds that while several scholars have said that Douglas was personally opposed to slavery, none has presented "extensive arguments to justify the conclusion". He cites recent scholarship as (equally briefly) finding Douglas "insensitive to the moral repugnance of slavery" or even "proslavery". He concludes that Douglas was the "ideological [and] practical head of the northern opposition to the antislavery movement" and questions whether Douglas "opposed black slavery for any reason, including economics".
Harry Jaffa thought Douglas was tricking the South with popular sovereignty—telling Southerners it would protect slavery but believing the people would vote against it. Johannsen found Douglas "did not regard slavery as a moral question; at least, he never condemned the institution in moral terms either publicly or privately." However he "privately deplored slavery and was opposed to its expansion (and, indeed, in 1860 was widely regarded in both North and South as an antislavery candidate), he felt that its discussion as a moral question would place it on a dangerous level of abstraction." [30]
Starting with Josiah Gilbert Holland's 1866 Life of Abraham Lincoln, a number of sources recount an anecdote about Douglas at Lincoln's first inauguration. Lincoln took the oath of office, then took off his "stovepipe" hat in preparation for giving his inaugural address. But he had nowhere to set down the hat. Douglas, who was on the platform, stepped forward and took the hat from Lincoln's hands. Moving back, he remarked "If I can't be the President, at least I can hold his hat."
The story seems symbolic of both the power of the moment and the character of Douglas. Though he and Lincoln had been well-known rivals for both Senator and President, his respect for the office and his loyalty to the Union overcame any personal bad feelings. For decades, many scholars viewed the story with skepticism, due to its romantic appeal: it seemed too good to be true.
However, In 1959, historian Allan Nevins reported the discovery of two independent contemporary sources that corroborated the story.[31]
- Numerous places were named after him: counties in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, the cities of Douglas in Georgia and Wyoming were also named for him.
In 1939, actor Milburn Stone portrayed Douglas in the Twentieth Century-Fox film Young Mr. Lincoln. In 1940, Canadian actor Gene Lockhart portrayed Douglas in the Warner Bros. film Abe Lincoln in Illinois. In 1957, the actor Walter Coy portrayed Douglas in the episode "Springfield Incident" of CBS's The 20th Century Fox Hour. Other stars of the segment are Lloyd Corrigan and Tom Tryon, and Alan Hale, Jr.[32]
- ^ McPherson, pp. 177-8
- ^ Dean (1994)
- ^ Brandon Village Historic District, Vermont Heritage Network via the University of Vermont. Accessed 2009-07-14.
- ^ Morris 2008, pg. 8
- ^ Johnston, Mary. Roman Life. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1957. Print.
- ^ a b c Stephen A. Douglas and the American Union, University of Chicago Library Special Exhibit, 1994, accessed 4 April 2011
- ^ "Stephen A. Douglas", Marriage and Fortune,University of Chicago Library, accessed 4 April 2011
- ^ a b c Clinton 1988
- ^ [1]
- ^ Holman Hamilton, "Democratic Senate Leadership and the Compromise of 1850," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Dec., 1954), pp. 403-418 in JSTOR
- ^ Dean 1995
- ^ Johannsen (1973) pp 304-7, 335
- ^ Johannsen, p 558, 872
- ^ McPherson, Battle Cry, pp.121-122.
- ^ Senator Lewis Cass, a leading Democrat from Michigan and the Democratic presidential nominee in 1848, had coined the idea of popular sovereignty.
- ^ Nichols 1956, who concludes thus (p. 212): "It was but a few steps onward to secession, the Confederacy, and the Solid South. The great volcano of American politics was in a state of eruption. In the midst of the cataclysm, one sees Douglas crashing and hurtling about, caught like a rock in a gush of lava. Two new masses were prominent on the political landscape, the Republican party and the Solid South. Douglas had disappeared."
- ^ a b c Johannsen (1973)
- ^ David Donald, Lincoln. (1995) p. 222
- ^ Donald, 222
- ^ Stevenson 1994
- ^ Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative - Fort Sumter to Perryville p. 34
- ^ Catton, Bruce. The Coming Fury p. 101
- ^ Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p. 243
- ^ Catton, Bruce. The Coming Fury p. 329
- ^ University of Chicago Web site http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/douglas8.html
- ^ Nichols (1956)
- ^ Dean (1995)
- ^ Huston 1997
- ^ Nevins (1947) 2:107-8, quoted in Peck (2005)
- ^ Peck (2005); Peck cites (footnote 2, and associated text) Johannsen, Stevens, Milton, Capers, Wells, Baker, Potter and David Donald as believing Douglas opposed slavery; on the other side, he cites Morrison, Richards and Glickstein.
- ^ [2] Nevins,Alan; "He Did Hold Lincoln's Hat: Senator Douglas’ act is verified, at last, by first-hand testimony"; American Heritage Magazine; Vol 10, Issue 2 (February 1959)
- ^ "Frontier (1955-1956)". Internet Movie Data Base. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047733/episodes. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- Robert W. Johannsen, ed. The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas (1961)
- Paul M. Angle, ed., Created Equal? The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (1958),
- Lincoln, Abraham and Douglas, Stephen A. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text. Harold Holzer, Ed. Harpercollins, 1993.
- Harry V. Jaffa and Robert W. Johannsen, eds. In the Name of the People: Speeches and Writings of Lincoln and Douglas in the Ohio Campaign of 1859. (1959) online version
- Douglas, Stephen Arnold. A brief treatise upon constitutional and party questions, and the history of political parties, (1861) James Madison Cutts, ed. (1866)
Text supplemented from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- Barbee, David R., and Milledge L. Bonham, Jr. "The Montgomery Address of Stephen A. Douglas," Journal of Southern History, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Nov., 1939), pp. 527–552 in JSTOR
- Capers, Gerald M. Stephen A. Douglas: Defender of the Union (1959), short biography
- Childers, Christopher. "Interpreting Popular Sovereignty: A Historiographical Essay," Civil War History Volume 57, Number 1, March 2011 pp. 48–70 in Project MUSE
- Clinton, Anita Watkins. "Stephen Arnold Douglas - His Mississippi Experience" Journal of Mississippi History 1988 50(2): 56-88.
- Dean; Eric T., Jr. "Stephen A. Douglas and Popular Sovereignty" Historian 1995 57(4): 733-748 online version
- Egerton, Douglas R., Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War, Bloomsbury Press, 2010. more on the book
- Eyal, Yonatan. "With His Eyes Open: Stephen A. Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Disaster of 1854" Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 1998 91(4): 175-217. ISSN 1522-1067
- Glickstein, Jonathan A., American exceptionalism, American anxiety: wages, competition, and degraded labor in the Antebellum United States; University of Virginia Press, (2002)
- Hansen, Stephen and Nygard, Paul. "Stephen A. Douglas, the Know-nothings, and the Democratic Party in Illinois, 1854-1858" Illinois Historical Journal 1994 87(2): 109-130.
- Huston, James L. "Democracy by Scripture versus Democracy by Process: A Reflection on Stephen A. Douglas and Popular Sovereignty." Civil War History. 43#1 (1997) pp: 189+. online version
- Jaffa, Harry V. Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 1959. online version
- Johannsen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas (1973), 993pp
- Johannsen, Robert W. The Frontier, the Union, and Stephen A. Douglas U. of Illinois Press, 1989.
- McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. Oxford Univ. Press, 1988. Standard modern history of the war.
- Milton, George Fort. The Eve of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War (1934), older scholarly biography
- Morris, Roy, Jr., The Long Pursuit: Abraham Lincoln's Thirty-Year Struggle with Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America, HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.
- Morrison, Michael A.Slavery and the American west: the eclipse of manifest destiny and the coming of the American Civil War University of North Carolina Press, (1997)
- Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union especially vol 1-4 (1947–63): Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852; A House Dividing, 1852-1857; Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857-1859; Prologue to Civil War, 1859-1861.
- Nichols, Roy F. "The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography", Mississippi Valley Historical Review 43 (1956): 187-212; JSTOR
- Peck, Graham A. "Was Stephen A. Douglas Antislavery?," Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Summer 2005 online
- Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 (1920) vol 1-2, detailed narrative
- Russel, Robert R. "What Was the Compromise of 1850?" Journal of Southern History 20 (1956): 292-309 in JSTOR
- Russel, Robert R. "The Issues in the Congressional Struggle Over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 1854," Journal of Southern History 29 (May 1963): 187-210; in JSTOR
- Stevenson, James A. "Lincoln vs. Douglas over the Republican Ideal" American Studies 1994 35(1): 63-89
- Zarefsky, David. Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: in the Crucible of Public Debate (1990). 309 pp
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| Name |
Douglas, Stephen A. |
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American politician |
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April 23, 1813 |
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Brandon, Vermont |
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June 3, 1861 |
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Chicago, Illinois |
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