Stephen A. Douglas | Page 2

Vermont and New York across the Northwest to Kansas, were a social and political force of incalculable power, in the era which ended with the Civil War. The New Englander of the Middle West, however, ceased to be altogether a Yankee. The lake and prairie plains bred a spirit which contrasted strongly with the smug provincialism of rock-ribbed and sterile New England. The exultation born of wide, unbroken, horizon lines and broad, teeming, prairie landscapes, found expression in the often-quoted saying, "Vermont is the most glorious spot on the face of this globe for a man to be born in, provided he emigrates when he is very young." The career of Stephen Arnold Douglas is intelligible only as it is viewed against the background of a New England boyhood, a young manhood passed on the prairies of Illinois, and a wedded life pervaded by the gentle culture of Southern womanhood.
In America, observed De Tocqueville two generations ago, democracy disposes every man to forget his ancestors. When the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas was once asked to prepare an account of his career for a biographical history of Congress, he chose to omit all but the barest reference to his forefathers.[1] Possibly he preferred to leave the family tree naked, that his unaided rise to eminence might the more impress the chance reader. Yet the records of the Douglass family are not uninteresting.[2] The first of the name to cross the ocean was William Douglass, who was born in Scotland and who wedded Mary Ann, daughter of Thomas Marble of Northampton. Just when this couple left Old England is not known, but the birth of a son is recorded in Boston, in the year 1645. Soon after this event they removed to New London, preferring, it would seem, to try their luck in an outlying settlement, for this region was part of the Pequot country. Somewhat more than a hundred years later, Benajah Douglass, a descendant of this pair and grandfather of the subject of this sketch, pushed still farther into the interior, and settled in Rensselaer County, in the province of New York. The marriage of Benajah Douglass to Martha Arnold, a descendant of Governor William Arnold of Rhode Island, has an interest for those who are disposed to find Celtic qualities in the grandson, for the Arnolds were of Welsh stock, and may be supposed to have revived the strain in the Douglass blood.
Tradition has made Benajah Douglass a soldier in the war of the Revolution, but authentic records go no farther back than the year 1795, when he removed with his family to Brandon, Vermont. There he purchased a farm of about four hundred acres, which he must have cultivated with some degree of skill, since it seems to have yielded an ample competency. He is described as a man of genial, buoyant disposition, with much self-confidence. He was five times chosen selectman of Brandon; and five times he was elected to represent the town in the General Assembly. The physical qualities of the grandson may well have been a family inheritance, since of Benajah we read that he was of medium height, with large head and body, short neck, and short limbs.[3]
The portrait of Benajah's son is far less distinct. He was a graduate of Middlebury College and a physician by profession. He married Sally Fisk, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer in Brandon, by whom he had two children, the younger of whom was Stephen Arnold Douglass, born April 23, 1813. The promising career of the young doctor was cut short by a sudden stroke, which overtook him as he held his infant son in his arms. The plain, little one-and-a-half story house, in which the boy first saw the light, suggests that the young physician had been unable to provide for more than the bare necessities of his family.[4]
Soon after the death of Dr. Douglass, his widow removed to the farm which she and her unmarried brother had inherited from her father. The children grew to love this bachelor uncle with almost filial affection. Too young to take thought for the morrow, they led the wholesome, natural life of country children. Stephen went to the district school on the Brandon turnpike, and had no reason to bemoan the fate which left him largely dependent upon his uncle's generosity. An old school-mate recalls young Douglass through the haze of years, as a robust, healthy boy, with generous instincts though tenacious of his rights.[5] After school hours work and play alternated. The regular farm chores were not the least part in the youngster's education; he learned to be industrious and not to despise honest labor.[6]
This bare outline of a commonplace boyhood must be filled in with many details drawn from environment. Stephen fell heir to a wealth of