new countries, had to look backward to
older communities for capital. President Jackson had but lately made his
final assault upon the National Bank, the principal dispenser of
capital, by the removal of the deposits, and public opinion was much
divided on his course, when Douglas opened his law office and began to
discuss public questions with his neighbors. While he still lived at
Winchester, he had helped to get subscribers for a Democratic newspaper
at Jacksonville, and he soon called upon the editor, who was first
surprised at his visitor's youthful appearance and then, as he himself
tells us, at "the strength of his mind, the development of his
intellect, and his comprehensive knowledge of the political history of
his country."

Boy as he looked, and boy as he was, for he had not yet passed his
twenty-first birthday, Douglas actually got the leadership of the
Jackson party in that neighborhood before he had lived there a month. An
enthusiastic supporter of the President's policy on the bank question,
he talked about the matter so well on Saturdays, when, according to the
Western and Southern custom, the country people flocked into town, that
he was put forward to move the Jackson resolutions at a mass meeting of
Democrats which he and his friend, the editor, had contrived to bring
about. There was a great crowd. Josiah Lamborn, an orator of some
reputation, opposed the resolutions. Douglas replied in an hour's
speech, discomfited Lamborn, and so swept his audience that they seized
upon him and bore him on their shoulders out of the room and around the
public square. He was the "Little Giant" from that day, and the speech
became a Democratic tradition. Of course, in after years, the men who
could say they heard it could not be expected to admit that he ever made
a better speech in his life.

Within a year, he was so well known that he was chosen to the office of
public prosecutor, or district attorney, of the first judicial circuit,
the most important in Illinois, and his successful candidacy for the
place is all the more remarkable because he was chosen by the
legislature, and not by his neighbors of the circuit. Moreover, his
competitor, John J. Hardin, was one of the foremost men of Illinois. It
is true that Hardin was a Whig, and that by this time there was a
pretty clear division between Whigs and Jackson men on offices as well
as measures, so that the contest was a party as well as a personal
affair; but f