Attorney and Democratic politician Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813-1861) was born in Brandon, Vermont, to Stephen Arnold Douglas and Sarah Fisk. In 1833, he moved to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he studied law and was appointed State Attorney for Morgan County a year later. Douglas was elected to the Illinois State Legislature and became an associate justice of the Illinois Supreme Court in 1841. A year later, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and to the U.S. Senate in 1852. Following a famous contest with Abraham Lincoln, Douglas was reelected in 1858. His adherence to democratic principles influenced his work on the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In 1860, Douglas won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidency, but lost the election to Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln.
Source: “Douglas, Stephen Arnold.” Biographical Directory of the United States
Congress. Accessed August 5, 2011.
The Stephen Arnold Douglas Collection, 1841, consists of a May 1841 legal sworn statement declaring the residence of a defendant in De Witt County, Illinois.
This collection is open for research use.
Stephen Arnold Douglas Collection, 1841, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
This collection was processed by Evan Usler, August 2011.