Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Adolescence in Vermont
- 2 Schooling, Learning, and Passing the Bar
- 3 Family Influences, Stress, and Bonds
- 4 Democratic Prodigy in Illinois
- 5 Constitutionalism, Part I
- 6 Constitutionalism, Part II
- 7 The 1860 Campaign and the Code Against Campaigning
- 8 In Lincoln’s Shadow
- 9 Douglas’s Mississippi Slaves
- Appendix Douglas’s Campaign Itinerary, 1860: June 23 to November 6
- Index
- References
3 - Family Influences, Stress, and Bonds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Adolescence in Vermont
- 2 Schooling, Learning, and Passing the Bar
- 3 Family Influences, Stress, and Bonds
- 4 Democratic Prodigy in Illinois
- 5 Constitutionalism, Part I
- 6 Constitutionalism, Part II
- 7 The 1860 Campaign and the Code Against Campaigning
- 8 In Lincoln’s Shadow
- 9 Douglas’s Mississippi Slaves
- Appendix Douglas’s Campaign Itinerary, 1860: June 23 to November 6
- Index
- References
Summary
All of us were very much disappointed when we found you could not visit us grandma probably felt worse than the others.
Adelaide Granger to Stephen Douglas (1856)The influence of family on individual maturation is limited. Even the most highly informed and involved parents recognize that they can control only so much of their children’s trajectory. Environment (e.g., peers, schools, media, churches) and genes count as well. Biological factors are beyond the range of biography. We can reconstruct only familial and environmental conditions, but in postulating connections between these influences and Douglas’s development we should be as cautious as parents must be in predicting the future of their offspring.
The two women in Stephen’s family of origin were always allied in regard to him. His mother, Sarah “Sally” Douglass, was the formative influence in his upbringing. Her namesake daughter reinforced her authority. Stephen appears never to have had an independent relationship with his sister. Closely bound to her mother, who married her father-in-law within the same year of her wedding, daughter Sarah either spoke for Sally or communicated to Stephen through her husband, Julius Granger. Birth order researchers have long found that oldest children often assume parental roles with younger siblings, repeating maternal (or paternal) prescriptions. In later years, Sarah was Sally’s surrogate with Stephen, which only reaffirmed his mother’s continuing importance to him.
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- Information
- Stephen A. Douglas and Antebellum Democracy , pp. 42 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012