CHAPTER III[ToC]
LAW AND POLITICS
The years were passing rapidly during which Douglas should have laid broad and deep the foundations of his professional career, if indeed law was to be more than a convenient avocation. These were formative years in the young man's life; but as yet he had developed neither the inclination nor the capacity to apply himself to the study of the more intricate and abstruse phases of jurisprudence. To be sure, he had picked up much practical information in the courts, but it was not of the sort which makes great jurists. Besides, his law practice had been, and was always destined to be, the handmaid of his political ambition. In such a school, a naturally ardent, impulsive temperament does not acquire judicial poise and gravity. After all, he was only a soldier of political fortune, awaiting his turn for promotion. A reversal in the fortunes of his party might leave him without hope of preferment, and bind him to a profession which is a jealous mistress, and to which he had been none too constant. Happily, his party was now in power, and he was entitled to first consideration in the distribution of the spoils. Under somewhat exceptional circumstances the office of Secretary of State fell vacant in the autumn of 1840, and the chairman of the Democratic Central Committee entered into his reward.
When Governor Carlin took office in 1838, he sent to the Senate the nomination of John A. McClernand as Secretary of State, assuming that the office had been vacated and that a new Governor might choose his advisers.[[118]] Precedent, it is true, militated against this theory, for Secretary Field had held office under three successive governors; but now that parties had become more sharply defined, it was deemed important that the Secretary of State should be of the same political persuasion as the Governor,—and Field was a Whig. The Senate refused to indorse this new theory. Whereupon the Governor waited until the legislature adjourned, and renewed his appointment of McClernand, who promptly brought action against the tenacious Field to obtain possession of the office. The case was argued in the Circuit Court before Judge Breese, who gave a decision in favor of McClernand. The case was then appealed. Among the legal talent arrayed on the side of the claimant, when the case appeared on the docket of the Supreme Court, was Douglas—as a matter of course. Everyone knew that this was not so much a case at law as an issue in politics. The decision of the Supreme Court reversing the judgment of the lower court was received, therefore, as a partisan move to protect a Whig office-holder.[[119]]
For a time the Democrats, in control elsewhere, found themselves obliged to tolerate a dissident in their political family; but the Democratic majority in the new legislature came promptly to the aid of the Governor's household. Measures were set on foot to terminate Secretary Field's tenure of office by legislative enactment. Just at this juncture that gentleman prudently resigned; and Stephen A. Douglas was appointed to the office which he had done his best to vacate.[[120]]
This appointment was a boon to the impecunious young attorney. He could now count on a salary which would free him from any concern about his financial liabilities,—if indeed they ever gave him more than momentary concern. Besides, as custodian of the State Library, he had access to the best collection of law books in the State. The duties of his office were not so exacting but that he could still carry on his law studies, and manage such incidental business as came his way. These were the obvious and tangible advantages which Douglas emphasized in the mellow light of recollection.[[121]] Yet there were other, less obvious, advantages which he omitted to mention.
The current newspapers of this date make frequent mention of an institution popularly dubbed "the Third House," or "Lord Coke's Assembly."[[122]] The archives of state do not explain this unique institution. Its location was in the lobby of the State House. Like many another extra-legal body it kept no records of its proceedings; yet it wielded a potent influence. It was attended regularly by those officials who made the lobby a rendezvous; irregularly, by politicians who came to the Capitol on business; and on pressing occasions, by members of the legislature who wished to catch the undertone of party opinion. The debates in this Third House often surpassed in interest the formal proceedings behind closed doors across the corridor. Members of this house were not held to rigid account for what they said. Many a political coup was plotted in the lobby. The grist which came out of the legislative mill was often ground by irresponsible politicians out of hearing of the Speaker of the House. The chance comer was quite as likely to find the Secretary of State in the lobby as in his office among his books.
The lobby was a busy place in this winter session of 1840-41. It was well known that Democratic leaders had planned an aggressive reorganization of the Supreme Court, in anticipation of an adverse decision in the famous Galena alien case. The Democratic programme was embodied in a bill which proposed to abolish the existing Circuit Courts, and to enlarge the Supreme Court by the addition of five judges. Circuit Courts were to be held by the nine judges of the Supreme Court.[[123]] Subsequent explanations did not, and could not, disguise the real purpose of this chaste reform.[[124]]