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Senator Douglas

About This Item

  • Title: Senator Douglas
  • Date: 21 September 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00841
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 21 September 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Thara Michaelis Brandi Faulkner Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Senator Douglas." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00841.xml (TEI)
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SENATOR DOUGLAS.—

A friend who has attended some half dozen or more of meetings in various parts of Illinois where Senator Douglas1 has addressed the people, and who, therefore, may be regarded as having some knowledge on the subject, is confident that the "Little Giant" will be successful in the contest in which he is now engaged. He states that at St. Louis odds are readily wagered in his favor.

Notes:

1. Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813–1861), nicknamed the "Little Giant," was a U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1847 to 1861. Douglas promoted the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and ran for President against Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He was a well-known proponent of "Popular Sovereignty," the idea that the question of slavery should be left for voters of a given state to decide. For more information, see T. Gregory Garvey, "Douglas, Stephen Arnold (1813–1861)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]

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