Illinois Speaker Wants Stephen Douglas Portrait, Statue Gone

ILLINOIS — Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan called Thursday for the removal of a portrait of Stephen A. Douglas from the Statehouse, as well as statues of both Douglas and Pierre Menard from Capitol grounds.

"While reading Sidney Blumenthal's book 'All the Powers of Earth' concerning the pre-Civil War period a few months ago, I learned of Stephen Douglas' disturbing past as a Mississippi slave owner and his abhorrent words toward people of color," Madigan said in a statement. "I advised my staff to research and confirm the history to support removing the Douglas portrait from the House chamber. I became more resolute in my decision to remove the Douglas portrait as we witnessed the tragic killing of George Floyd and the bravery of so many who have stood up and spoken out against injustice that has never been fully addressed."

Douglas, who owned slaves under his wife's name in Mississippi, ran for president against fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In debates against Lincoln for U.S. Senate in 1858, a race Douglas won, he argued strongly in favor of letting states decide the issue of slavery and declared that Black people were not his equal and should not become citizens of the United States.

"I say that this Government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men," Douglas said in his fourth debate with Lincoln, held in Charleston, Illinois. The line got Douglas "immense applause," according to transcripts of the speech.

Pierre Menard, who became Illinois' first lieutenant governor in 1818, forced enslaved Africans to build his house and labor on his farm in southern Randolph County, Illinois, according to archaeologists Christopher Stratton and Floyd Mansberger writing in the journal Illinois Antiquity. Though its state constitution forbade slavery from being introduced after Illinois joined the union, slavery was not formally banned in the state until a new constitution was drafted in 1848.

"So today, I am taking the first important step of removing this unnecessary reminder of our country's painful past," Madigan said, adding that he will introduce a resolution to replace the portrait of Douglas with one of former President Barack Obama, "a more fitting representation of the modern-day Democratic Party."

"In the meantime," he said, "I am looking into ways the portrait can be covered immediately.

"Memorializing people and a time that allowed slavery and fostered bigotry and oppression has no place in the Illinois House, where the work of all Illinoisans is conducted," Madigan continued. "We can only move forward in creating a more just world when these symbols of hate are removed from our everyday lives."

This isn't the first time Douglas' legacy has come under fire. In 2017, students in North Lawndale started a petition to rename the predominantly Black neighborhood's Douglas Park after Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist preacher, writer and speaker who escaped slavery and campaigned for racial equality and women's suffrage.

With the process at a standstill, a "rogue painter" added an extra "S" to the sign earlier this year, according to Block Club Chicago.

The University of Chicago also announced this week that it will get rid of a bronze plaque to Douglas in Hutchison Commons and take out a stone from the "Old University of Chicago" mounted in the wall of the Classics Building.

"The plaque was a gift from the University of Chicago Class of 1901 to recognize the earlier university, which was built on land in Bronzeville donated by Douglas but failed and closed in 1886," the university said in a July 7 statement. "The stone was donated to the University of Chicago in 1927."

The university noted that Douglas had no connection to the present iteration of the University of Chicago, which was founded almost 30 years after his death.

"Douglas profited from his wife's ownership of a Mississippi plantation where Black people were enslaved," the university said. "While it is critical to understand and address the ongoing legacy of slavery and oppression in this country, Douglas does not deserve to be honored on our campus. Both the plaque and the stone are being relocated to the University's Special Collections Research Center."

Douglas and Menard join other slavers, colonizers and Confederates to have their statues taken down or toppled since the killing of George Floyd on May 25 sparked the largest protest movement in American history, according to the New York Times.

"Of course, removing these images does not erase our history, but it is one more step in acknowledging the suffering of so many and committing to creating a better Illinois for everyone," Madigan said.