An Exhibition in the Department of Special Collections The University of Chicago Library
February 12, 1994 - June 20, 1994
By Daniel Meyer
The life of Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) spanned one of the most dramatic periods in American history. Born during the War of 1812 as the United States broke the last of its bonds to Britain, Douglas came to maturity in a brash nation that seemed capable of becoming the great new continental power of the age. Exploration, trading, armed force, and settlement pushed the American sphere of influence steadily westward across the plains. Little wonder that Douglas himself was invigorated by the possibilities of the nation's future. "From early youth," he claimed, "I have indulged an enthusiasm, which seemed to others wild and romantic, in regard to the growth, expansion, and destiny of this republic."
Like a number of other political leaders of the day, Douglas was committed to democracy, nationalism, and material growth. Yet he stood apart from both his rivals and his allies in the breadth of his comprehension of the American temperament. As a native New Englander who had found his career in the West and married into the plantation society of the South, Douglas virtually encompassed the national character. He also embodied the stresses and fissures of the nation's growing sectional complexity. While representing the interests of the booming West, he also sought to satisfy the commercial interests of the North and remain sensitive to the social and political mores of the South.
For Douglas, the bounty of American prosperity and geographical expansion was so great that it could accommodate all manner of diversity in culture, customs, and religion. The genius of the American constitution was that it derived from the compromise of otherwise irreconcilable sectional interests. So long as the integrity of the constitution was defended and the principle of the Union preserved, the states and the nation would remain strong and free.
Douglas's ideal of American nationality was a powerful and fluid political force. But other, countervailing forces were also at work. In the North, a growing moral abhorrence of human bondage aligned with swelling fears that the territorial domain of slavery would be expanded without limit. In the South, a constitutional interest in protecting states' rights merged with a rising apprehension that northern radicals would constrict the prerogatives of slaveowners. Caught between these colliding passions, Douglas called for a retreat from extremism and a return to constitutional compromise. In a final, exhausting presidential campaign, he argued for the primacy of the American Union, and he died believing that it might still prevail.
This exhibition marks a signficant moment in the documentary history of antebellum period, the reunification of the Stephen A. Douglas papers in the University of Chicago Library. In 1932, the University acquired from the Senator's grandson, Robert Dick Douglas, what it then believed to be the surviving papers of Stephen A. Douglas. Sixty years later, in 1992, several members of the Douglas family presented additional Douglas papers in their keeping to the University. The consolidated Douglas collection, which is now in the process of being organized, includes more than twenty-one thousand manuscripts, letters, photographs, and newspaper clippings documenting the life of Senator Douglas and his role in nineteenth-century American politics. The manuscripts, letters, and other historical materials in this exhibition testify both to the riches of the collection and the generosity of the Douglas family.
Unless otherwise identified, items in the exhibition are from the Stephen A. Douglas papers. Additional materials in the exhibition have been drawn from the the Library's general collection and the Department of Special Collections.
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS AND THE AMERICAN UNION
To Next Section--1. Politics on the Illinois Frontier
For further information about this exhibition and related book and manuscript collections, please contact:
Special Collections Research Center
University of Chicago Library
1100 E. 57th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637
Fax: (773) 702-3728