Lincoln’s declaration that the cause of slavery restriction “must be intrusted to its own undoubted friends” had something more than a general meaning.  We have seen that while Douglas avowed he did not care “whether slavery was voted down or voted up” in the Territories, he had opposed the Lecompton Constitution on the ground of its non-submission to popular vote, and that this opposition caused the Buchanan Democrats to treat him as an apostate.  Many earnest Republicans were moved to strong sympathy for Douglas in this attitude, partly for his help in defeating the Lecompton iniquity, partly because they believed his action in this particular a prelude to further political repentance, partly out of that chivalric generosity of human nature which sides with the weak against the strong.  In the hour of his trial and danger many wishes for his successful reelection came to him from Republicans of national prominence.  Greeley, in the New York “Tribune” as well as in private letters, made no concealment of such a desire.  Burlingame, in a fervid speech in the House of Representatives, called upon the young men of the country to stand by the Douglas men.  It was known that Colfax and other influential members of the House were holding confidential interviews with Douglas, the object of which it was not difficult to guess.  There were even rumors that Seward intended to interfere in his behalf.  This report was bruited about so industriously that he felt it necessary to permit a personal friend to write an emphatic denial, so that it might come to Lincoln’s knowledge.  On the other hand, newspapers ventured the suggestion that Lincoln might retaliate by a combination against Seward’s Presidential aspirations.

  [Sidenote] Wentworth to Lincoln, April 19, 1858.  MS.

Rival politicians in Illinois were suspicious of each other, and did not hesitate to communicate their suspicions to Lincoln.  Personal friends, of course, kept him well informed about these various political under-currents, and an interesting letter of his shows that he received and treated the matter with liberal charity.  “I have never said or thought more,” wrote he, “as to the inclination of some of our Eastern Republican friends to favor Douglas, than I expressed in your hearing on the evening of the 21st April, at the State Library in this place.  I have believed—­do believe now—­that Greeley, for instance, would be rather pleased to see Douglas reelected over me or any other Republican; and yet I do not believe it is so because of any secret arrangement with Douglas—­it is because he thinks Douglas’s superior position, reputation, experience, and ability, if you please, would more than compensate for his lack of a pure Republican position, and, therefore, his reelection do the general cause of Republicanism more good than would the election of any one of our better undistinguished pure Republicans.  I do not know how you estimate Greeley, but I consider him incapable of corruption