Part 5 (2/2)

Seven of the ten counties composing the Fifth Congressional District were within the so-called ”military tract,” between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers; three counties lay to the east on the lower course of the Illinois. Into this frontier region population began to flow in the twenties, from the Sangamo country; and the organization of county after county attested the rapid expansion northward. Like the people of southern Illinois, the first settlers were of Southern extraction; but they were followed by Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders. In the later thirties, the Northern immigration, to which Douglas belonged, gave a somewhat different complexion to Peoria, Fulton, and other adjoining counties. Yet there were diverse elements in the district: Peoria had a cosmopolitan population of Irish, English, Scotch, and German immigrants; Quincy became a city of refuge for ”Young Germany,” after the revolutionary disturbances of 1830 in Europe.[155]

No sooner had the reapportionment act pa.s.sed than certain members of the legislature, together with Democrats who held no office, took it upon themselves to call a nominating convention, on a basis of representation determined in an equally arbitrary fas.h.i.+on.[156] The summons was obeyed nevertheless. Forty ”respectable Democats”

a.s.sembled at Griggsville, in Pike County, on June 5, 1843. It was a most satisfactory body. The delegates did nothing but what was expected of them. On the second ballot, a majority cast their votes for Douglas as the candidate of the party for Congress. The other aspirants then graciously withdrew their claims, and pledged their cordial support to the regular nominee of the convention.[157] Such machine-like precision warmed the hearts of Democratic politicians.

The editor of the _People's Advocate_ declared the integrity of Douglas to be ”as unspotted as the vestal's fame--as untarnished and as pure as the driven snow.”

The Griggsville convention also supplied the requisite machinery for the campaign: vigilant precinct committees; county committees; a district corresponding committee; a central district committee. The party now pinned its faith to the efficiency of its organization, as well as to the popularity of its candidate.

Douglas made a show of declining the nomination on the score of ill-health, but yielded to the urgent solicitations of friends, who would fain have him believe that he was the only Democrat who could carry the district.[158] Secretly pleased to be overruled, Douglas burned his bridges behind him by resigning his office, and plunged into the thick of the battle. His opponent was O.H. Browning, a Kentuckian by birth and a Whig by choice. It was Kentucky against Vermont, South against North, for neither was unwilling to appeal to sectional prejudice. Time has obscured the political issues which they debated from Peoria to Macoupin and back; but history has probably suffered no great loss. Men, not measures, were at stake in this campaign, for on the only national issue which they seemed to have discussed--Oregon--they were in practical agreement.[159] Both cultivated the little arts which relieve the tedium of politics.

Douglas talked in heart to heart fas.h.i.+on with his ”esteemed fellow-citizens,” inquired for the health of their families, expressed grief when he learned that John had the measles and that Sally was down with the chills and fever.[160] And if Browning was less successful in this gentle method of wooing voters, it was because he had less genuine interest in the plain common people, not because he despised the petty arts of the politician.

The canva.s.s was short but exhausting. Douglas addressed public gatherings for forty successive days; and when election day came, he was prostrated by a fever from which he did not fully recover for months.[161] Those who gerrymandered the State did their work well.

Only one district failed to elect a Democratic Congressman. Douglas had a majority over Browning of four hundred and sixty-one votes.[162]

This cheering news hastened his convalescence, so that by November he was able to visit his mother in Canandaigua. Member of Congress at the age of thirty! He had every reason to be well satisfied with himself.

He was fully conscious that he had begun a new chapter in his career.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 118: Ford, History of Illinois, pp. 213-214.]

[Footnote 119: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 454-455.]

[Footnote 120: Why McClernand was pa.s.sed over is not clear. Douglas entered upon the duties of his office November 30, 1840.]

[Footnote 121: Wheeler, Biographical History of Congress, p. 74.]

[Footnote 122: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 43.]

[Footnote 123: Ford, History of Illinois, p. 217.]

[Footnote 124: _Ibid._, pp. 212-222.]

[Footnote 125: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, p. 456.]

[Footnote 126: Illinois _State Register_, January 29, 1841; Ford, History of Illinois, p. 220.]

[Footnote 127: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 457-458.]

[Footnote 128: _Ibid._, pp. 457-458.]

[Footnote 129: Illinois _State Register_, February 5, 1841. Judge Smith is put in an unenviable light by contemporary historians. There seems to be no reason to doubt that he misinformed Douglas and others.

See Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 458-459.]

[Footnote 130: Chicago _American_, February 18, 1841.]

[Footnote 131: Sangamo _Journal_, March 19, 1841.]

[Footnote 132: Chicago _American_, February 18, 1841.]

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