page_title: Stephen A. Douglas
section_title: Marriage and family
hierarchical_section_title: Stephen A. Douglas / Marriage and family
caption_attribution_description: Adele Cutts, wife of Stephen A. Douglas. Library of Congress description: "Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas".
context_page_description: Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. He was one of two Democratic Party nominees for president in the 1860 presidential election, which was won by Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1858 United States Senate election in Illinois, known for the Lincoln–Douglas debates. During the 1850s, Douglas was one of the foremost advocates of popular sovereignty, which held that each territory should be allowed to determine whether to permit slavery within its borders. Douglas was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because he was short in physical stature but a forceful and dominant figure in politics.
  Born in Brandon, Vermont, Douglas migrated to Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1833 to establish a legal practice. He experienced early success in politics as a member of the Democratic Party, serving in the Illinois House of Representatives and various other positions. He resigned from the Supreme Court of Illinois upon being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1843. Douglas became an ally of President James K. Polk, and favored the annexation of Texas and the Mexican–American War.
context_section_description: In March 1847, he married Martha Martin, the 21-year-old daughter of wealthy Colonel Robert Martin of North Carolina. The year after their marriage, Martha's father died and bequeathed her a 2,500-acre cotton plantation with 100 slaves on the Pearl River in Lawrence County, Mississippi. He appointed Douglas the property manager but, as a senator of the free state of Illinois, and with presidential aspirations, Douglas found the Southern plantation presented difficulties. He created distance by hiring a manager to operate the plantation, while using his allocated 20 percent of the income to advance his political career. His sole lengthy visit to Mississippi was in 1848, and he made only brief emergency trips thereafter.
  The newlyweds moved their Illinois home from Springfield to fast-growing Chicago in the summer of 1847. They had two sons: Robert M. Douglas (1849–1917) and Stephen Arnold Douglas, Jr., (1850–1908). Martha Douglas died on January 19, 1853, after the birth of her third child, a daughter. The girl died a few weeks later, and Douglas and the two boys were bereft.
  On November 20, 1856, Douglas married a second time, to 20-year-old Adele Cutts, a southern woman from Washington, D.C, She was the daughter of James Madison Cutts, a nephew of former President James Madison, and Ellen O'Neal, a niece of Rose O'Neal Greenhow. Her mother was from a Maryland Catholic family and raised Adele as a Catholic. With Stephen's approval, she had his two sons baptized as Catholic and reared in that faith. She had a miscarriage in 1858 and became ill. The following year, Adele gave birth to a daughter, Ellen, who lived only a few weeks.
caption: Adele Cutts, c. 1860
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