With this encounter at Alton, the joint debates, but not the campaign closed.  Douglas continued to speak at various strategic points, in spite of inclement weather and physical exhaustion, up to the eve of the election.[771] The canvass had continued just a hundred days, during which Douglas had made one hundred and thirty speeches.[772] During the last weeks of the campaign, election canards designed to injure Douglas were sedulously circulated, adding no little uncertainty to the outcome in doubtful districts.  The most damaging of these stories seems to have emanated from Senator John Slidell of Louisiana, whose midsummer sojourn in Illinois has already been noted.  A Chicago journal published the tale that Douglas’s slaves in the South were “the subjects of inhuman and disgraceful treatment—­that they were hired out to a factor at fifteen dollars per annum each—­that he, in turn, hired them out to others in lots, and that they were ill-fed, over-worked, and in every way so badly treated that they were spoken of in the neighborhood where they are held as a disgrace to all slave-holders and the system they support.”  The explicit denial of the story came from Slidell some weeks after the election, when the slander had accomplished the desired purpose.[773]

All signs pointed to a heavy vote for both tickets.  As the campaign drew to a close, the excitement reached a pitch rarely equalled even in presidential elections.  Indeed, the total vote cast exceeded that of 1856 by many thousands,—­an increase that cannot be wholly accounted for by the growth of population in these years.[774] The Republican State ticket was elected by less than four thousand votes over the Democratic ticket.  The relative strength of the rival candidates for the senatorship, however, is exhibited more fully in the vote for the members of the lower house of the State legislature..  The avowed Douglas candidates polled over 174,000, while the Lincoln men received something over 190,000.  Administration candidates received a scant vote of less than 2,000.  Notwithstanding this popular majority, the Republicans secured only thirty-five seats, while the Democratic minority secured forty.  Out of fifteen contested senatorial seats, the Democrats won eight with a total of 44,826 votes, while the Republicans cast 53,784 votes and secured but seven.  No better proof could be offered of Lincoln’s contention that the State was gerrymandered in favor of the Democrats.  Still, this was part of the game; and had the Republicans been in office, they would have undoubtedly used an advantage which has proved too tempting for the virtue of every American party.

When the two houses of the Illinois Legislature met in joint session, January 6, 1859, not a man ventured, or desired, to record his vote otherwise than as his party affiliations dictated.  Douglas received fifty-four votes and Lincoln forty-six.  “Glory to God and the Sucker Democracy,” telegraphed the editor of the State Register to his chief.  And back over the wires from Washington was flashed the laconic message, “Let the voice of the people rule.”  But had the will of the people ruled?