The returns from the elections in other Northern States were equally discouraging, from the Democratic point of view.  Only seven out of forty-two who had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska bill were re-elected.  In the next House, the Democrats would be in a minority of seventy-five.[520] The anti-Nebraska leaders were not slow in claiming a substantial victory.  Indeed, their demonstrations of satisfaction were so long and loud, when Congress reassembled for the short session, that many Democrats found it difficult to accept defeat good-naturedly.  Douglas, for one, would not concede defeat, despite the face of the returns.  Men like Wade of Ohio, who enjoyed chaffing their discomfited opponents, took every occasion to taunt the author of the bill which had been the undoing of his party.  Douglas met their gibes by asking whether there was a single, anti-Nebraska candidate from the free States who did not receive the Know-Nothing vote.  For every Nebraska man who had suffered defeat, two anti-Nebraska candidates were defeated by the same causes.  “The fact is, and the gentleman knows it, that in the free States there has been an alliance, I will not say whether holy or unholy, at the recent elections.  In that alliance they had a crucible into which they poured Abolitionism, Maine liquor-lawism, and what there was left of Northern Whigism, and then the Protestant feeling against the Catholic, and the native feeling against the foreigner.  All these elements were melted down in that crucible, and the result was what was called the Fusion party.  That crucible ... was in every instance, a Know-Nothing Lodge."[521]

There was, indeed, enough of confusion in some States to give color to such assertions.  Taken collectively, however, the elections indicated unmistakably a widespread revulsion against the administration of President Pierce; and it was folly to contend that the Kansas-Nebraska bill had not been the prime cause of popular resentment.  Douglas was so constituted temperamentally that he both could not, and would not, confront the situation fairly and squarely.  This want of sensitiveness to the force of ethical convictions stirring the masses, is the most conspicuous and regrettable aspect of his statecraft.  Personally Douglas had a high sense of honor and duty; in private affairs he was scrupulously honest; and if at times he was shifty in politics, he played the game with quite as much fairness as those contemporary politicians who boasted of the integrity of their motives.  He preferred to be frank; he meant to deal justly by all men.  Even so, he failed to understand the impelling power of those moral ideals which border on the unattainable.  For the transcendentalist in politics and philanthropy, he had only contempt.  The propulsive force of an idea in his own mind depended wholly upon its appeal to his practical judgment.  His was the philosophy of the attainable.  Results that were approximately just and fair satisfied him.  He was not disposed to sacrifice immediate advantage to future gain.  His Celtic temperament made him think rapidly; and what imagination failed to supply, quick wit made good.