Consistency and change in the rhetoric of Stephen A. Douglas

Abstract

In his own time, and since that time to the present, Stephen A. Douglas has been praised and reviled for his resolute persistence and also praised and reviled for his elastic flexibility. We account for this bifurcated assessment through a careful examination of the key texts of Douglas's public career, concluding that Douglas negotiated consistency and change through his adherence to a hierarchy of values. The values grounding his arguments changed, but within a hierarchy that remained consistent. The issues that Douglas addressed are some of those that characterize the contemporary public sphere. Understanding of the way that Douglas addressed those questions can help to situate them within an evolving rhetorical history.