CHAPTER II

THE SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1858

Douglas was chosen to the United States Senate from Illinois for the first time in 1847 and was re-elected in 1853; consequently his second term would expire in 1859 and he must at that time seek a new election at the hands of the Illinois legislature. To compass this end, he must control the legislative elections of 1858. The state was never lost to the Democratic column before 1860; but Douglas found himself obliged to enter the campaign of 1858 under peculiar and embarrassing circumstances. The plan by which he had hoped to establish home rule in Kansas had caused a situation in the territory which bade fair to test the principle of "popular sovereignty" and to create dissension in the Democratic party. Some of the residents of the territory late in 1857 framed and adopted a constitution at Lecompton; but the free-soil people of the territory refused to take part in the proceedings. The adoption by Congress of this "Lecompton constitution" was favored by President Buchanan, but was opposed by Senator Douglas on the ground that it was not a fair test of "popular sovereignty." If Douglas were successful in securing a re-election in Illinois, it could be interpreted in no other way than a defeat for the administration and an invitation to other ambitious statesmen to brook presidential disfavor. It was reported that Buchanan warned Douglas of his peril and that Douglas replied, "Mr. President, Andrew Jackson is dead," implying that the days of presidential dictation were past. Consequently the new Republican party of Illinois

had an unexpected opportunity of aiding a Democratic president to defeat a Democratic senator for re-election.

If Douglas entered the canvass beset with difficulty, Lincoln was far from being able to place the contest purely on the basis of merit. The patronage of the state so long enjoyed by Senator Douglas under Democratic administration had dotted the state with Douglas postmasters, revenue collectors, and other federal officers. That Lincoln fully appreciated this handicap is evident from one of his Springfield speeches of 1858:

"Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the president of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshallships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope: but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphant entries, and receptions beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor.

"On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon principles alone."

There was also a possibility that at the last moment it might become necessary to name as the Republican candidate for the senatorship a former Democrat, as had been done in the election of 1854. It was also rumored that John Wentworth of Chicago was the real candidate and

Nicolay and Hay, op. cit., 261.