Letters

Collected from scattered sources throughout the United States, these letters cover the years of Douglas' mature life, from 1833, when the twenty-year-old Douglas, newly arrived in Illinois, recorded the first impressions of his new home, to 1861, three weeks before his death, when as a national leader he sought to rally his section and his party to the cause of the Union. They extol the virtues of Illinois as an agricultural state ; discuss the Mormons' expulsion from Nauvoo, the Mexican War, railroad matters, political developments, appointments, slavery, and secession ; include autobiographical sketches ; and accept Lincoln's challenge and set up the arrangements for the now famous Lincoln-Douglas debates in the U.S. senatorial campaign of 1858. -- from inside jacket flap.