Register.  Democrats in distant parts of the State were disposed to resent this action on the part of “the Springfield clique”; but the onset of the enemy quelled mutiny.  In one way the nomination of Ford was opportune.  It could not be said of him that he had showed any particular solicitude for the welfare of the followers of Joseph Smith.[144] The ticket could now be made to face both ways.  Ford could assure hesitating Democrats who disliked the Mormons, that he had not hobnobbed with the Mormon leaders, while Douglas and his crew could still demonstrate to the Prophet that the cause of human liberty, for which he stood so conspicuously, was safe in Democratic hands.  The game was played adroitly.  Ford carried Hancock County by a handsome majority and was elected governor.[145]

It has already been remarked that as judge, Douglas was potentially a candidate for almost any public office.  He still kept in touch with Springfield politicians, planning with them the moves and counter-moves on the checker-board of Illinois politics.  There was more than a grain of truth in the reiterated charges of the Whig press, that the Democratic party was dominated by an arbitrary clique.[146] It was a matter of common observation, that before Democratic candidates put to sea in the troubled waters of State politics, they took their dead-reckoning from the office of the State Register.  It was noised abroad in the late fall that Douglas would not refuse a positive call from his party to enter national politics; and before the year closed, his Springfield intimates were actively promoting his candidacy for the United States Senate, to succeed Senator Young.  This was an audacious move, since even if Young were passed over, there were older men far more justly entitled to consideration.  Nevertheless, Douglas secured in some way the support of several delegations in the legislature, so that on the first ballot in the Democratic caucus he stood second, receiving only nine votes less than Young.  A protracted contest followed.  Nineteen ballots were taken.  Douglas’s chief competitor proved to be, not Young, but Breese, who finally secured the nomination of the caucus by a majority of five votes.[147] The ambition of Judge Douglas had overshot the mark.

In view of the young man’s absorbing interest in politics, his slender legal equipment, and the circumstances under which he received his appointment, one wonders whether the courts he held could have been anything but travesties on justice.  But the universal testimony of those whose memories go back so far, is that justice was on the whole faithfully administered.[148] The conditions of life in Illinois were still comparatively simple.  The suits instituted at law were not such as to demand profound knowledge of jurisprudence.  The wide-spread financial distress which followed the crisis of 1837, gave rise to many processes to collect debts and to set aside fraudulent conveyances.  “Actions of slander and trespass for assault and battery, engendered by the state of feeling incident to pecuniary embarrassment, were frequent."[149]