In spite of similar untoward incidents, the vast majority of people in the country North and South were acquiescing little by little in the settlement reached by the compromise measures.  There was an evident disposition on the part of both Whig and Democratic leaders to drop the slavery issue.  When Senator Sumner proposed a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, Douglas deprecated any attempt to “fan the flames of discord that have so recently divided this great people,"[374] intimating that Sumner’s speech was intended to “operate upon the presidential election.”  It ill became the Senator from Illinois to indulge in such taunts, for no one, it may safely be said, was calculating his own political chances more intently.  “Things look well,” he had written to a friend, referring to his chances of securing the nomination, “and the prospect is brightening every day.  All that is necessary now to insure success is that the northwest should unite and speak out."[375]

When the Democrats of Illinois proposed Douglas’s name for the presidency in 1848, no one was disposed to take the suggestion seriously, outside the immediate circle of his friends.  To graybeards there was something almost humorous in the suggestion that five years of service in Congress gave a young man of thirty-five a claim to consideration!  Within three short years, however, the situation had changed materially.  Older aspirants for the chief magistracy were forced, with no little alarm, to acknowledge the rise of a really formidable rival.  By midsummer of 1851, competent observers thought that Douglas had the best chance of winning the Democratic nomination.  In the judgment of certain Whig editors, he was the strongest man.  It was significant of his growing favor, that certain Democrats of the city and county of New York tendered him a banquet, in honor of his distinguished services to the party and his devotion to the Union during the past two years.

Politicians of both parties shared the conviction that unless the Whigs could get together,—­which was unlikely,—­a nomination at the hands of a national Democratic convention was equivalent to an election.  Consequently there were many candidates in the field.  The preliminary canvass promised to be eager.  It was indeed well under way long before Congress assembled in December, and it continued actively during the session.  “The business of the session,” wrote one observer in a cynical frame of mind, “will consist mainly in the manoeuvres, intrigues, and competitions for the next Presidency.”  Events justified the prediction.  “A politician does not sneeze without reference to the Presidency,” observed the same writer, some weeks after the beginning of the session.  “Congress does little else but intrigue for the respective candidates."[376]