The Life of Stephen A. Douglas

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. 0x0x0. First edition (Sabin 80032). Boards lightly rubbed with corners slightly exposed, endpapers foxesd, scattered light foxing throughout. 1860 Hard Cover. xi, [1], 528, [14] pp. 8vo. A biography of Stephen Arnold Douglas, the American politician who served in the House of Representatives, and lost the 1860 presidential election to Abraham Lincoln. An earlier Senate race between these two resulted in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, which are still held up as the standard for debate by the National Speech and Debate Association and other forensics organizations. Douglas (along with President Franklin Pierce), drafted the Kansas-Nebraska Act which, though it paved the way for a transcontinental railroad, also resulted in Bleeding Kansas, a series of violent confrontations related to the legality of slavery in Kansas. Opposition to the act also resulted in the formation of the Republican Party. This biography includes close to ten pages about Brigham Young and the Mormons, and discussions of: Jackson's bank policy; history of the 'alien suffrage'; the annexation of Texas; the Mexican War; the Monroe Doctrine; the acquisition of Cuba; the Wilmot Proviso; 36-30 and abolition; the Fugitive Slave Law; the Missouri Compromise; Know-nothingism; Kansas statehood; the Lecompton Controversy; Harper's Ferry; etc. (Inventory #: 2347165)