situation in Morgan County, as the State election
approached, is not altogether clear. President Jackson's high-handed
acts, particularly his attitude toward the National Bank, had alarmed
many men who had supported him in 1832. There were defections in the
ranks of the Democracy. The State elections would surely turn on
national issues. The Whigs were noisy, assertive, and confident.
Largely through the efforts of Brooks and Douglass, the Democrats of
Jacksonville were persuaded to call a mass-meeting of all good
Democrats in the county. It was on this occasion, very soon after his
arrival in town, that Douglass made his debut on the political stage.

It is said that accident brought the young lawyer into prominence at
this meeting. A well-known Democrat who was to have presented
resolutions, demurred, at the last minute, and thrust the copy into
Douglass' hands, bidding him read them. The Court House was full to
overflowing with interested observers of this little by-play.
Excitement ran high, for the opposition within the party was vehement
in its protest to cut-and-dried resolutions commending Jackson. An
older man with more discretion and modesty, would have hesitated to
face the audience; but Douglass possessed neither retiring modesty
nor the sobriety which comes with years. He not only read the
resolutions, but he defended them with such vigorous logic and with
such caustic criticism of Whigs and half-hearted Democrats, that he
carried the meeting with him in tumultuous approval of the course of
Andrew Jackson, past and present.[39]

The next issue of the _Patriot_, the local Whig paper, devoted two
columns to the speech of this young Democratic upstart; and for weeks
thereafter the editor flayed him on all possible occasions. The result
was such an enviable notoriety for the young attorney among Whigs and
such fame among Democrats, that he received collection demands to the
amount of thousands of dollars from persons whom he had never seen or
known. In after years, looking back on these beginnings, he used to
wonder whether he ought not to have paid the editor of the _Patriot_
for his abuse, according to the usual advertising rates.[40] The
political outcome was not in every respect so gratifying. The
Democratic county ticket was elected and a Democratic congressman from
the district; but the Whigs elected their candidate for governor.

A factional quarrel among members of his own party gave Douglass his
re