Life in Russia had a radicalizing impact upon Douai and after 5 years in the country he returned to his native Altenburg, convinced that a revolution for constitutional and democratic government was in the wings. There he bought a building and hired assistants and established a private preparatory school. With the coming of the Revolutions of 1848, Douai helped organize clubs for workers and students and took an active part in the political movement, sitting as a member of the revolutionary Landtag of Saxe-Altenberg. His political activity brought him to the attention of the government of Saxony, which arrested him and charged him with high treason and rioting in the summer of 1848. Douai prevailed on the charge of treason but was nevertheless sentenced to one year in prison on three of the counts against him, a result which forced him to close his school and disburse its property. Following his release from prison, Douai was pressured by the government to emigrate and did so. Douai came to the United States and made his new home in the country's new state of Texas in the German colony of New Braunfels. There he helped to raise funds to launch the "Neue Braunfelser Zeitung" in November 1852, a publication edited by his friend Ferdinand Lindheimer (1801-1879). Douai also attempted to establish another school, but the efforts of the free-thinker Douai were impeded by a local Catholic priest, who spoke out against the schoolmaster, prompting parents to withdraw their children from his school. Douai subsequently fell ill with cholera, resulting in the termination of the school. With his first business effort a failure, Douai moved to nearby San Antonio and turned his attention to newspaper work, launching a newspaper, the "San Antonio Deutsche Zeitung" (German News). In his paper's pages, Douai unflinchingly denounced slavery as an evil incompatible with democracy and urged its abolition. Douai advocated in favor of establishing a slavery free state in the territory of western Texas. These controversial positions in slave-state Texas resulted in widespread public antipathy and the loss of advertisers and lead to the necessary sale of his publication in 1856. With the American Civil War in the wind, Douai moved north to Boston, Massachusetts, where he began working as a private tutor, also teaching at a New England institute for the blind in South Boston. While in Boston, Douai established a German workingmen's club which in 1859 sponsored a three-classroom school featuring the first Kindergarten in America.