Douglas paid dearly for this assault upon Know-Nothingism.  The order had organized lodges also in the Northwest, and when Douglas returned to his own constituency after the adjournment of Congress, he found the enemy in possession of his own redoubts.  With some show of reason, he afterward attributed the demonstration against him in Chicago to the machinations of the Know-Nothings.  His experience with the mob left no manner of doubt in his mind that Know-Nothingism, and not hostility to his Kansas-Nebraska policy, was responsible for his failure to command a hearing.[511]

But Douglas was mistaken, or he deceived himself, when he sought in the same fashion to explain away the opposition which he encountered as he traveled through the northern counties of the State.  Malcontents from both parties, but chiefly anti-slavery Whigs, Free-Soilers, and Abolitionists, were drawing together in common hostility to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  Mass conventions were summoned, irrespective of party, in various counties; and they gave no uncertain expression to their hatred of slavery and the slave-power.  These were the counties most largely peopled by the New England immigrants.  Anti-Nebraska platforms were adopted; and fusion candidates put in nomination for State and congressional office.  In the central and southern counties, the fusion was somewhat less complete; but finally an anti-Nebraska State convention was held at Springfield, which nominated a candidate for State Treasurer, the only State officer to be elected.[512] For the first time in many years, the overthrow of the Democratic party seemed imminent.

However much Douglas may have misjudged the causes for this fusion movement at the outset, he was not long blind as to its implications.  On every hand there were symptoms of disaffection.  Personal friends turned their backs upon him; lifelong associates refused to follow his lead; even the rank and file of his followers seemed infected with the prevailing epidemic of distrust.  With the instinct of a born leader of men, Douglas saw that the salvation of himself and his party lay in action.  The elan of his forces must be excited by the signal to ride down the enemy.  Sounding the charge, he plunged into the thick of the fray.  For two months, he raided the country of the enemy in northern Illinois, and dashed from point to point in the central counties where his loyal friends were hard pressed.[513] It was from first to last a tempestuous conflict that exactly suited the impetuous, dashing qualities of “the Little Giant.”

In the Sixth Congressional District, Douglas found his friend Harris fighting desperately with his back against the wall.  His opponent, Yates, was a candidate for re-election, with the full support of anti-Nebraska men like Trumbull and Lincoln, whom the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill had again drawn into politics.  While the State Fair was in progress at Springfield, both candidates strained every nerve