Silence upon so vital an issue could not long be maintained.  In the following June, an Iowa friend wrote to Douglas to inquire whether he would be a candidate for the Presidential nomination at the coming Charleston Convention.  Douglas replied that party issues must first be defined.  If the Democracy adhered to their former principles, his friends would be at liberty to present his name.  “If, on the contrary,” continued he, “it shall become the policy of the Democratic party, which I cannot anticipate, to repudiate these their time-honored principles, on which we have achieved so many patriotic triumphs, and in lieu of them the convention shall interpolate into the creed of the party such new issues as the revival of the African slave-trade, or a Congressional slave-code for the Territories, or the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States either establishes or prohibits slavery in the Territories beyond the power of the people legally to control it, as other property—­it is due to candor to say that, in such an event, I could not accept the nomination if tendered to me.”

  [Sidenote] Ray to Lincoln, July 27, 1858.  MS.

We must leave the career of Douglas for a while, to follow up the personal history of Lincoln.  The peculiar attitude of national politics had in the previous year drawn the attention of the whole country to Illinois in a remarkable degree.  The Senatorial campaign was hardly opened when a Chicago editor, whose daily examination of a large list of newspaper exchanges brought the fact vividly under his observation, wrote to Lincoln:  “You are like Byron, who woke up one morning and found himself famous.  People wish to know about you.  You have sprung at once from the position of a capital fellow, and a leading lawyer in Illinois, to a national reputation.”

[Illustration:  DAVID COLBRETH BRODERICK.]

  [Sidenote] David Davis to Lincoln, Nov. 7, 1858.  MS.

The compliment was fully warranted; the personal interest in Lincoln increased daily from the beginning to the end of the great debates.  The Freeport doctrine and its effect upon the Democratic party gave these discussions both present significance and a growing interest for the future.  Another friend wrote him, a few days after election:  “You have made a noble canvass, which, if unavailing in this State, has earned you a national reputation, and made you friends everywhere.”

  [Sidenote] Delahay to Lincoln, March 15, 1859.  MS.

  [Sidenote] Dorsheimer to Chase, Sept. 12, 1859.  MS.

  [Sidenote] Kasson to Lincoln, Sept. 13, 1859.  MS.

  [Sidenote] Kirkpatrick to Lincoln, Sept. 15, 1859.  MS.

  [Sidenote] Weed to Judd, Oct. 21, 1859.  MS.

  [Sidenote] Dennison to Trumbull, July 21, 1859.  MS.