280 DOUGLASS, SIR HOWAED. 



DOUGLAS, STEPHEN A. 



DOUGLASS, SIR HOWARD, an English gen- 

 eral, born in Gosport, Hampshire, July 1st, 1776, 

 and died on the 8th of Nov. 1861, in the 86th 

 year of his age. His career, military, politi- 

 cal, and scientific, was long and distinguished. 

 Some thirty years since he was well known 

 on this side of the Atlantic as the Governor 

 of New Brunswick, a position which he held 

 from 1823 to 1829. His name is more particu- 

 larly identified with military matters, for which 

 he had a decided preference, as is shown by long, 

 active service, as well as by many able treatises 

 on fortifications and gunnery, which he has 

 written. He entered the British army early 

 in life, served in Portugal and Spain in 1808-'9, 

 took a prominent part in the expedition to 

 "Walcheren in 1810, returned to the Peninsula 

 in 1811, and served there until the close of the 

 campaign in 1812. He was Lord High Commis- 

 sioner of the Ionian Islands from 1835 to 1840, 

 and represented Liverpool in parliament from 

 1842 to 1847. Among the productions of his 

 pen is an essay " On the Construction of Mili- 

 tary Bridges," and " A Treatise on Naval Gun- 

 nery." He was lineally descended from one of 

 the most illustrious families of Scotland. 



DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD, an American 

 statesman, born at Brandon, Vermont, April 

 23, 1813, and died at Chicago, Illinois, June 3, 

 1861. With his mother and step-father he re- 

 moved to Canandaigua, New York, about the 

 age of eighteen years, and entered as a student 

 in the academy at that place, in which he con- 

 tinued until 1833. At the same time he pur- 

 sued the study of the law, and finally adopted 

 that profession. He commenced the practice 

 of the law at Jacksonville, Illinois, and in 1835, 

 when scarcely twenty-two years of age, was 

 elected attorney-general of the State. In 1835 

 he resigned, and became a member of the Leg- 

 islature, and in 1837 was appointed register of 

 the land office at Springfield, and resigned in 

 1839. In 1840 he was appointed Secretary of 

 State, and in 1841 elected by the Legislature a 

 Judge of the Supreme Court, which he resigned 

 in 1843, and was elected a member of Congress, 

 and again reelected, and in 1847 was chosen 

 Senator for six years from the 4th of March ; 

 which position he continued to hold until the 

 time of his death. He was a candidate for the 

 Presidency of the United States in 1852, and 

 again "in 1856, and in 1860 received a nomi- 

 nation. (For the details of his distinguished 

 career up to this period see NEW AMERICAN 

 CYCLOPAEDIA.) The vote at the Presidential 

 election in 1860 resulted in the electoral col- 

 lege as follows : 



Douglas, 12. Lincoln, 180. 



Bell, 39. Breckinridge, 72. 



The popular vote was as follows : 



Douglas, 1,365,976. Lincoln, 1,857,610. 



Bell, 590,631. Breckinridge, 847,953. 



Senator Douglas took a lively interest in 

 the exciting troubles which commenced subse- 

 quently to this election. His views were freely 

 and forcibly expressed in his place in the Sen- 



ate, (see CONGRESS, U. S.,) and his determination 

 to sustain and defend the Government at every 

 cost. 



Soon after the close of the extra session of the 

 Senate he left "Washington for Chicago. On 

 the 20th of April, 1861, he was detained at Belair, 

 Ohio, in consequence of the railroad train hav- 

 ing missed a connection. No sooner was it 

 known that the distinguished Senator was 

 there than the town became alive with excite- 

 ment, and in the afternoon a crowd of the citi- 

 zens, and a large delegation from "Wheeling, 

 and hundreds from the surrounding country, 

 gathered in front of the house where he was 

 stopping. They cheered him and the Union, 

 and Major Anderson, and the Stars and Stripes. 



Finally Mr. Douglas made his appearance, 

 and found it impossible to refrain from speak- 

 ing. In a lengthy speech he thus.expressed in 

 a few words the matter at issue before the 

 country : 



"We in the northwest of this great valley can never 

 recognize either the propriety or the right of States 

 bordering along upon the Gulf of Mexico and upon the 

 Atlantic Ocean, or upon the Pacific, to separate from 

 the Union of our fathers, and establish and erect tax- 

 gatherers and custom-houses upon our commerce in its 

 passage to the Gulf or the ocean. If we recognize the 

 right in one case we give our assent to it in all cases; 

 and if the few States upon the Gulf now are to sepa- 

 rate themselves from us and erect a barrier across the 

 mouth of that great river, of which the Ohio is a trib- 

 utary, how long will it be before New York may come 

 to the conclusion that she may set up for herself and 

 levy taxes upon every dollar's worth of goods imported 

 and consumed in the Northwest, and taxes upon every 

 bushel of wheat and every pound of pork and beef or 

 other productions that may be sent from the North- 

 west to the Atlantic in search of a market? The very 

 existence of the people in this great valley depends 

 upon maintaining inviolate and forever that great right 

 secured by the Constitution, of freedom of trade, of 

 transit, and of commerce, from the centre of the conti- 

 nent to the ocean that surrounds it. This right can 

 never be surrendered ; our very existence depends upon 

 maintaining it. 



The proposition now is, to separate these United 

 States into little petty confederacies. First, divide 

 them into two ; and then, when either party gets beaten 

 at the next election, subdivide again ; then, when- 

 ever one gets beat again, another subdivision ; and 

 then, when you beat on Governor's election, the dis- 

 comfited will rebel again, and so it will go on. And 

 if this new system of resistance by the sword and 

 bayonet to the result of the ballot-box shall pre- 

 vail here in this country of purs, the history of the 

 United States is already written in the history of 

 Mexico. 



On the 25th of the same month the Legislature 

 of Illinois assembled to hear an address from him, 

 in which he discussed with considerable fulness 

 the exciting topics of the day. On the 1st of 

 May he returned to his home in Chicago, some- 

 what indisposed at the time with the incipient 

 stages of inflammatory rheumatism. His pri- 

 mary attack rapidly assumed a typhoid character, 

 and continued from the outset very unyielding. 

 After some ten or twelve days his attack was 

 complicated with an ulcerated sore throat, which 

 soon disappeared. At this time he writes to the 

 Chairman of the State Democratic Committee, 

 giving, in a candid, friendly manner, his views 



