The opportunity afforded the young Judge to extend his knowledge
and mingle on terms of equality with the masters of his profession
was such as rarely falls to the lot of a half-educated man of
twenty-eight. He did not become an eminent Judge, yet he left the
bench, after three years' service, with marked improvement in the
solidity and dignity of his character.





Chapter III. Member of Congress.




The legislature met in December, 1842, to chose a Senator. Douglas
still lacked six months of the thirty years required, but came
within five votes of the election.

In the following spring he received the Democratic nomination for
Congress and resigned his judgeship to enter the campaign. The
District included eleven large counties in the western part of the
State. O. H. Browning of Quincy, a lawyer of ability, destined to
a distinguished political career and to succeed to Douglas' vacant
seat in the Senate twenty years later, was the Whig candidate.
They held a long series of joint discussions, addressed scores of
audiences and so exhausted themselves that both were prostrated
with serious sickness after the campaign. The questions discussed