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Person1813 – 1861

Stephen A. Douglas

Also called: Stephen Douglas, Little Giant

Democratic senator from Illinois who championed popular sovereignty, wrote the Kansas–Nebraska Act and lost the 1860 election to Lincoln

Short of stature but a powerful speaker, the “Little Giant” was a Democratic senator from Illinois. Championing popular sovereignty — letting settlers decide on slavery in the territories — he steered the Compromise of 1850 through Congress and wrote the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. He beat Lincoln for the Senate in 1858 after their seven famous debates, but lost the presidency to him in 1860 after the Democrats split. When war came he rallied support for the Union, and died of illness in June 1861.

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3 related events

  1. 1
    1850Compromise of 1850key figure

    As North and South clashed over slavery in the lands won from Mexico, Congress compromised in five laws, admitting California as a free state but passing a harsher Fugitive Slave Act.

  2. 2
    1854 – 1856Kansas–Nebraska Actkey figure

    By leaving slavery in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to their settlers, the act erased the Missouri Compromise line; bloodshed followed in Kansas and the Republican Party was born to oppose the spread of slavery.

  3. 3
    1860Election of Lincoln (1860 Presidential Election)participant

    With the Democrats split between North and South, Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery, swept the Northern states and won the presidency.

People who appear alongside

  • Henry Clay1777 – 1852

    Kentucky statesman, the “Great Compromiser”, who shaped the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Compromise of 1850

  • John Brown1800 – 1859

    Abolitionist who advocated armed struggle; he fought in Kansas and in 1859 raided the Harpers Ferry armory, for which he was hanged

  • Abraham Lincoln1809 – 1865

    16th US president (1861–1865) who preserved the Union in the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation; assassinated just after the war ended

Themes this person appears in

  • The American Civil War1850 – 1865

    From the Compromise of 1850 to Lincoln’s assassination — a nation divided over slavery fought four years of civil war, preserving the Union and ending slavery