For the moment there was a disposition to drop Shields in favor of some Democrat who was not so closely identified with the Nebraska bill.  Douglas viewed the situation with undisguised alarm.  He urged his friends, however, to stick to Shields.  “The election of any other man,” he wrote truthfully, “would be deemed not only a defeat, but an ungrateful desertion of him, when all the others who have voted with him have been sustained."[517] It was just this fine spirit of loyalty that made men his lifelong friends and steadfast followers through thick and thin.  “Our friends should stand by Shields,” he continued, “and throw the responsibility on the Whigs of beating him because he was born in Ireland.  The Nebraska fight is over, and Know-Nothingism has taken its place as the chief issue in the future.  If therefore Shields shall be beaten it will [be] apparent to the people & to the whole country that a gallant soldier, and a faithful public servant has been stricken down because of the place of his birth.”  This was certainly shrewd, and, measured by the tone of American public life, not altogether reprehensible, politics.  Douglas anticipated that the Whigs would nominate Lincoln and “stick to him to the bitter end,” while the Free-Soilers and anti-Nebraska Democrats would hold with equal persistence to Bissell, in which case either Bissell would ultimately get the Whig vote or there would be no election.  Sounding the trumpet call to battle, Douglas told his friends to nail Shields’ flag to the mast and never to haul it down.  “We are sure to triumph in the end on the great issue.  Our policy and duty require us to stand firm by the issues in the late election, and to make no bargains, no alliances, no concessions to any of the allied isms.”

When the legislature organized in January, the Democrats, to their indescribable alarm, found the Fusion forces in control of both houses.  The election was postponed until February.  Meantime Douglas cautioned his trusty lieutenant in no event to leave Springfield for even a day during the session.[518] On the first ballot for senator, Shields received 41 votes; Lincoln 45; Trumbull, an anti-Nebraska Democrat, 5; while three Democrats and five Fusionists scattered their votes.  On the seventh ballot, Shields fell out of the running, his place being taken by Matteson.  On the tenth ballot, Lincoln having withdrawn, the Whig vote concentrated on Trumbull, who, with the aid of his unyielding anti-Nebraska following, received the necessary 51 votes for an election.  This result left many heart-burnings among both Whigs and Democrats, for the former felt that Lincoln had been unjustly sacrificed and the latter looked upon Trumbull as little better than a renegade.[519]