The courts were in keeping with the meagre legal attainments of those who frequented them.  Rude frame, or log houses served the purposes of bench and bar.  The judge sat usually upon a platform with a plain table, or pine board, for a desk.  A larger table below accommodated the attorneys who followed the judge in his circuit from county to county.  “The relations between the Bench and the Bar were free and easy, and flashes of wit and humor and personal repartee were constantly passing from one to the other.  The court rooms in those days were always crowded.  To go to court and listen to the witnesses and lawyers was among the chief amusements of the frontier settlements."[150] In this little world, popular reputations were made and unmade.

Judge Douglas was thoroughly at home in this primitive environment.  His freedom from affectation and false dignity recommended him to the laity, while his fairness and good-nature put him in quick sympathy with his legal brethren and their clients.  Long years afterward, men recalled the picture of the young judge as he mingled with the crowd during a recess.  “It was not unusual to see him come off the bench, or leave his chair at the bar, and take a seat on the knee of a friend, and with one arm thrown familiarly around a friend’s neck, have a friendly talk, or a legal or political discussion."[151] An attorney recently from the East witnessed this familiarity with dismay.  “The judge of our circuit,” he wrote, “is S.A.  Douglas, a youth of 28....  He is a Vermonter, a man of considerable talent, and, in the way of despatching business, is a perfect ‘steam engine in breeches.’ ...  He is the most democratic judge I ever knew....  I have often thought we should cut a queer figure if one of our Suffolk bar should accidentally drop in."[152]

Meantime, changes were taking place in the political map of Illinois, which did not escape the watchful eye of Judge Douglas.  By the census of 1840, the State was entitled to seven, instead of four representatives in Congress.[153] A reapportionment act was therefore to be expected from the next legislature.  Democrats were already at work plotting seven Democratic districts on paper, for, with a majority in the legislature, they could redistrict the State at will.  A gerrymander was the outcome.[154] If Douglas did not have a hand in the reapportionment, at least his friends saw to it that a desirable district was carved out, which included the most populous counties in his circuit.  Who would be a likelier candidate for Congress in this Democratic constituency than the popular judge of the Fifth Circuit Court?