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