Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen Arnold Douglas was born in 1813 in Brandon, Vermont. His father died when Stephen was two months old. As a young man he moved west to Illinois, where he became a lawyer. Short and forceful, he was nicknamed the Little Giant. He rose quickly in Democratic politics, serving as a state official and judge, and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1843 and to the Senate in 1847. He was a leading supporter of westward expansion and of the idea of 'popular sovereignty', which would let the settlers of each territory decide whether to allow slavery. He helped pass the Compromise of 1850 and wrote the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which reopened the conflict over slavery in the territories. In 1858 he defended his Senate seat against Abraham Lincoln in a famous series of debates and won re-election. In 1860 he was the presidential candidate of the northern Democrats and lost to Lincoln. When the Civil War began, he urged support for the Union. He died in June 1861.

Stephen A. Douglas is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Faith not well documented; he approved his Catholic wife raising his sons as Catholics. Source: Wikipedia