leave his chair at the bar, and take a seat on the knee of a friend,
and with one arm thrown familiarly around a friend's neck, have a
friendly talk, or a legal or political discussion."[151] An attorney
recently from the East witnessed this familiarity with dismay. "The
judge of our circuit," he wrote, "is S.A. Douglas, a youth of 28....
He is a Vermonter, a man of considerable talent, and, in the way of
despatching business, is a perfect 'steam engine in breeches.' ... He
is the most democratic judge I ever knew.... I have often thought we
should cut a queer figure if one of our Suffolk bar should
accidentally drop in."[152]

Meantime, changes were taking place in the political map of Illinois,
which did not escape the watchful eye of Judge Douglas. By the census
of 1840, the State was entitled to seven, instead of four
representatives in Congress.[153] A reapportionment act was therefore
to be expected from the next legislature. Democrats were already at
work plotting seven Democratic districts on paper, for, with a
majority in the legislature, they could redistrict the State at will.
A gerrymander was the outcome.[154] If Douglas did not have a hand in
the reapportionment, at least his friends saw to it that a desirable
district was carved out, which included the most populous counties in
his circuit. Who would be a likelier candidate for Congress in this
Democratic constituency than the popular judge of the Fifth Circuit
Court?

Seven of the ten counties composing the Fifth Congressional District
were within the so-called "military tract," between the Mississippi
and Illinois rivers; three counties lay to the east on the lower
course of the Illinois. Into this frontier region population began to
flow in the twenties, from the Sangamo country; and the organization