Illinois hero Stephen Douglas managed slaves

byron ed

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There's a proposal now to rename Chicago's Douglas Park* (as in Stephen Douglas famous senator and judge, once Lincoln's political opponent yet later an anti-secession supporter of Lincoln), part of a discussion about “basically racist monuments” at a meeting of an umbrella group named Springfield Call to Action. They would change that long-standing name to Douglass park, (as in famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass). Here's what I wasn't aware of:

"...Douglas’ father-in-law, upon his death, deeded a 2,500-acre Mississippi plantation worked by 150 slaves to Douglas’ wife and her heirs. Douglas served as property manager for which he received 20 percent of its annual income. When Douglas’ wife died in 1853 the cotton plantation was inherited by their two sons, while Douglas – known in Illinois as The Little Giant – continued as manager. “It was a characteristically artful arrangement allowing Douglas to have it both ways, legally not to be a slaveowner yet to profit from slavery..”
**

Discuss among yourselves.




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* "Proposal would rename park for Douglass not Douglas" Bernard Schoenburg, The State Journal-Register (Springfield) USA TODAY NETWORK
** “Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln 1849-1856,” 2017 by Sidney Blumenthal
 

Jim Klag

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There's a proposal now to rename Chicago's Douglas Park* (as in Stephen Douglas famous senator and judge, once Lincoln's political opponent yet later an anti-secession supporter of Lincoln), part of a discussion about “basically racist monuments” at a meeting of an umbrella group named Springfield Call to Action. They would change that long-standing name to Douglass park, (as in famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass). Here's what I wasn't aware of:

"...Douglas’ father-in-law, upon his death, deeded a 2,500-acre Mississippi plantation worked by 150 slaves to Douglas’ wife and her heirs. Douglas served as property manager for which he received 20 percent of its annual income. When Douglas’ wife died in 1853 the cotton plantation was inherited by their two sons, while Douglas – known in Illinois as The Little Giant – continued as manager. “It was a characteristically artful arrangement allowing Douglas to have it both ways, legally not to be a slaveowner yet to profit from slavery..”
**

Discuss among yourselves.




- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* "Proposal would rename park for Douglass not Douglas" Bernard Schoenburg, The State Journal-Register (Springfield) USA TODAY NETWORK
** “Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln 1849-1856,” 2017 by Sidney Blumenthal
Not much to discuss. Absentee Yankee "managers" were pretty common.
 

byron ed

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Not much to discuss. Absentee Yankee "managers" were pretty common.
Common or not for absentee managers, Douglas was actively managing a 150-slave chattel, for which he received 20 percent of the family plantation's year-over-year profits, while a citizen of the free state of Illinois.

Hear we have Douglas campaigning against fellow Illinoian Lincoln for a federal senate seat in a series of famous debates, both men claiming to represent the political will of Illinoians. Yet Douglas had directly profited from the sweat of 150 slaves, if the majority of Illinoians who were anti-slavery or slavery-neutral* knew that. So Douglas' stated agenda was perhaps suspect given his personal weasel, yes? Quite the humbug, yes?

One question that arises is why Lincoln didn't totally devastate Douglas in the famous debates using that fact of Douglas' personal stake in chattel slavery. Was it that Douglas' business in slavery was legal, so Lincoln would not allow himself to use such information against his rival? (You know, the honest Abe thing).

The significance of the story, if you've missed it, is that we have (as Illinoians and Americans) possibly been snookered that a park or statue should be maintained in Douglas' honor in the first place. We'd been taught that Douglas was on a patriotic and "selfless" mission to compromise on slavery in service of saving the Union, in the end wearing himself out and dying for that cause.

Perhaps the voting men of the south, as Democrats, identified with the kind of duplicity that a fellow capitalist slaver was bound to have, so rejected Douglas out-of-hand in his later bid for President.


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* after 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Law was implemented as part of an earlier Douglas compromise, the state became considerably more anti-slavery. By then pro-slavery rural southern Illinoians were politically inconsequential in number.
 
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O' Be Joyful

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Duplicity in life, business and politics is far from new and Douglass is not an exception. With the the caveat that that this does not separate him from the other a-holes of his/our modern times.
 

byron ed

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We know of the apologist's mantra that "Lee didn't own slaves" even though he managed and punished them. That was an in-law situation as well. We know of Lincoln's in-laws having slaves. We know of Grant had bossed a slave on his Missouri farm, another in-law deal, and we even know that Elijah Lovejoy (pen-ultimate Abolitionist) had hired slave labor for his printing business while in St. Louis printing anti-slavery material.

But imho here we have a whole other level of duplicity, not just another common case of it. Am I the only one that didn't know Stephen Douglas personally managed a 150-slave Southern plantation into the 1850s? Another in-law situation for sure, but the point is that he became a judge, senator and presidential candidate from the free state of Illinois without being called out about it by voters or by Lincoln. Why hasn't this been brought up before by historians generally?

I suppose if it's not much to talk about on these forums then it's not much to talk about on these forums, yet we can go on-and-on about Grant's minor drinking problem, pfft.
 
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O' Be Joyful

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Am I the only one that didn't know Stephen Douglas personally managed a 150-slave Southern plantation into the 1850s?



You mean to state that you just now learned of this? That I fully doubt.

As to the balance of the above, I agree.
 

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Not to those that are raised outside of a mushroom farm. ;)
Douglas' management of his wife's plantation has always been known as far as I remember. I first read it in Sandburg's Lincoln, I think. Don't quote me on that. Whenever I first read it, I've seen it dozens of times since then. It has never been a big deal until the recent desire to purge the earth of all things that ever had anything to do with slavery.
 

O' Be Joyful

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Douglas' management of his wife's plantation has always been known as far as I remember. I first read it in Sandburg's Lincoln, I think. Don't quote me on that. Whenever I first read it, I've seen it dozens of times since then. It has never been a big deal until the recent desire to purge the earth of all things that ever had anything to do with slavery.

Honestly, I did not know about it until a few years ago.

When I came outta the dark....
 

Jim Klag

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Honestly, I did not know about it until a few years ago.

When I came outta the dark....
I've read a lot on the Lincoln-Douglas debates since my mom gave me a book about it when I was 17. Lincoln's pals knew about Douglas' slave issues before Lincoln did and they tried to get him to use it in the debates. Lincoln said it was basically no big deal and he wouldn't use it. Some of the Whig/Republican newspapers printed it and it caused nary a ripple. The legislature was always going to vote on party lines - the important thing was to elect more Republican legislators.
 

byron ed

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Douglas' management of his wife's plantation has always been known as far as I remember...
What does that even mean? Prominent in High School history texts? Nope. Community historical museums? Nope. Dictionary under Stephen Douglas? Nope. National Park Service historical site displays? Nope. State and National congressional records? Nope. Ken Burns history series? Nope. History Channel? Nope. The "other" CWT site? Nope. Our moms, dads, aunts or uncles growing up? Never came up.

Whatever the special circumstance of your discovery of it, this has not been common knowledge. Outside of academia and yourself, it's rather a revelation.

What is common knowledge is that Lincoln was a covert vampire hunter.
 
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O' Be Joyful

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Outside of academia and yourself, it's rather a revelation.

I agree that it is rare that many/few are aware of this fact about Douglass.

And in the final analysis it did not win him any friends/votes in the South.
 

Jim Klag

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What does that even mean? Prominent in High School history texts? Nope. Community historical museums? Nope. Dictionary under Stephen Douglas? Nope. National Park Service historical site displays? Nope. Ken Burns history series? Nope. History Channel? Nope. The "other" CWT site? Nope. Our moms, dads, aunts or uncles? Never came up.

Whatever the special circumstance of your discovery of it, this has not been common knowledge. Outside of academia it's rather a revelation.

What's common knowledge is Lincoln's covert vampire vendetta.
Meaning virtually everything of a biographical nature having Stephen A. Douglas as a subject. Meaning it was not a well-kept secret in his time or in the many tomes in which Douglas is fearured since his time.
 

byron ed

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Meaning virtually everything of a biographical nature having Stephen A. Douglas as a subject. Meaning it was not a well-kept secret in his time or in the many tomes in which Douglas is fearured since his time.
Fair enough, academia then.
 

byron ed

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..Some of the Whig/Republican newspapers printed it and it caused nary a ripple...
That I would like to have as a reference for my presentations. Are there scanned copies of those particular op-eds available? I'm assuming it was Illinois papers at that time...
 

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To be fair to Ken Burns and the NPS, etc. In discussing these people, they didn't delve into family or business issues, only how the characters related to the Civil War. Except for Mary Lincoln, Julia Grant and Varina Davis, not many wives are even mentioned in general war histories.
 

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That I would like to have as a reference for my presentations. Are there scanned copies of those particular op-eds available? I'm assuming it was Illinois papers at that time...
I'll see what I can find. I know I've seen it in a footnote somewhere. I'll find it. Give me something to do.
 

Jim Klag

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You see, my problem is that Douglas has been a historical hero of mine, so let me down easy.
No reason he should not remain a hero. Don't fall into the trap of saddling 19th century men with 21st century sensitivities. The reason it was not a big deal in his own time was that, except for radical anti-slavery folk, his management of his wife's plantation didn't bother people. After all, most of the heroes of the Revolution were somehow involved in slavery. A great many northern folk had some connection, however slight, to the peculiar institution - wives' families, other relatives as slaveholders, etc. Men in Douglas' time didn't cringe at the thought of some public figure having a connection to slavery. Half of the Cabinet were slaveowners and a large percentage of Congress was too.
 
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