BIOG Johannsen's 1983 biography won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians. Though most know Douglas for his famous debates with Abraham Lincoln, Johannsen reveals him to be one of the most powerful and formidable politicians of his time. This edition contains a new introduction.-

A Biography written by a man who knew Stephen A. Douglas.

Today Stephen A. Douglas is mostly remembered as the man who debated Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas debates during the Senate election in 1858, but when this biography of Douglas was written ahead of the 1860 presidential election, Douglas was still arguably the most prominent politician in America. Like most campaign literature, this is a glowing account of Douglas' life and work, and something most people today would be unfamiliar with. It's a particularly interesting read for anyone interested in Lincoln, the Civil War, the issue of slavery, and those who want to better understand the mindset of 19th century Americans.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.