180 BOARD OF REGENTS. 



independence and resolute energy which the man was so remarkably and so triumph- 

 antly to exhibit throughout his at once brilliant and laborious career. 



His ancestors were of Puritan descent ; and his father was a physician of both 

 ability and reputation, but died at a prematurely early age, leaving his widow in very 

 straitened circumstances, if not even in actual distress. It may, indeed, be only too 

 reasonably feared that the latter was the case, for, excellent mother, as she was 

 known to be, she yet was unable to give young Stephen the full education he so muoh 

 desired and so well deserved. He attended the district school during only one-third 

 of the year ; during all except the four winter months he was engaged in the hard 

 labor of a farm or in the shop of a cabinet-maker. In this alternation of manual 

 labor and imperfect and interrupted schooling he continued until he was twenty years 

 of age, when he migrated to Illinois, where he taught school for his support, while 

 he resolutely studied law. In 1834 he was admitted to the bar, and we may judge of 

 the character of his early efforts in the courts from the fact that in 1835, being then 

 only twenty-two years of age, this young man, whose short life had been so largely 

 taxed by adverse circumstances, was elected State attorney. From that time he was con- 

 tinually in the public service. He was, in turn, State attorney, member of the Legisla- 

 ture, Secretary of State, judge of the supreme court of Illinois, and registrar of the 

 land office ; and subsequently he was a member of the lower House of Congress, and 

 three times in succession he was elected by his adopted State to be United States Sen- 

 ator ; and, as is well known, not long prior to his death he was the very popular 

 though unsuccessful candidate for the highest executive office in the gift of the na- 

 tion. 



These are the prominent points in the career of Douglas, whose life, commencing 

 in obscurity and continuing through nearly the half of its whole duration under the 

 most adverse circumstances, endedTin the full light of high position, and the full glow 

 of popular favor. The principles which he advocated, and to which he unwaveringly 

 adhered, as well as the measures he proposed, have been the theme of both criticism 

 and eulogy elsewhere, but the discussion of them here would be out of place, and in 

 violation of a rule early adopted by the Board of Eegents, that in the affairs of this 

 institution partisan politics shall forever be unknown. The points, however, in his 

 personal character which enabled him to obtain so important a position, and gave him 

 so great an influence, not only over intimate friends and colleagues, but also over the 

 public mind, may well claim our attention as a study no less important than inter- 

 esting. 



If continued success be the test of merit, then must all admit that Judge Douglas 

 was no ordinary man. That success in a single effort, which may be referred to a for- 

 tunate concurrence of circumstances over which the successful man had no control, is 

 not the true criterion of talent is a truth which must be readily admitted. But when 

 the course of an individual is marked through a series of years by a continual ad- 

 vancement in the same direction, and especially when that advancement requires fore- 

 cast, knowledge, perseverance, and energy, his success most assuredly is evidence of 

 talent, if not of genius. 



Courage, energy, and a working power, both mental and physical, which have 

 rarely been surpassed, were the qualities which chiefly served him in his earlier years. 

 The son of a poor widow, and compelled to spend in bodily labor the time which 

 other boys of his age pass in school, he would probably have remained a poor and 

 obscure individual had it not been for the resolute will to elevate himself, and the 

 courage, force of character, and determination to act in accordance with that will 

 which characterized his whole life. But of itself alone, that seemingly inexhaustible 

 power of labor which obtained for him the suggestive sobriquet of " the little giant " 

 would have been insufficient to effect the great success which he actually achieved, 

 had it not been directed and aided by other mental characteristics, which some even 

 of the warmest admirers and eulogists of the politician Douglas seem to me very in- 

 sufficiently to appreciate. 



In addition to the characteristics which I have already attributed to him, Judge 

 Douglas was remarkable for his quick perception of the nature of events, and of the 

 consequences which, with almost mathematical precision, he could predicate as to 

 their results. He had, to a wonderful degree, the power of seizing on general prin- 

 ciples, and of making them a part of his intellectual stores to be referred to in what- 

 ever particular case he might have to deal with ; and his retentive memory enabled 

 him on the instant to call up alike a general truth, and a host of particular facts in 

 effeetive illustration of his premises. 



These qualities might have been modified, but could not have been increased, or 

 even strengthened, by classical training ; nay, in becoming more refined and fastid- 



