As the canvass advanced, the assurance of the Whigs gave way to ill-disguised alarm.  Disquieting rumors of Douglas’s popularity among some two thousand Irishmen, who were employed on the canal excavation, reached the Whig headquarters.[94] The young man was assiduously cultivating voters in the most inaccessible quarters.  He was a far more resourceful campaigner than his older rival.

The election in August was followed by weeks of suspense.  Both parties claimed the district vociferously.  The official count finally gave the election to Stuart by a majority of thirty-five, in a total vote of over thirty-six thousand.[95] Possibly Douglas might have successfully contested the election.[96] There were certain discrepancies in the counting of the votes; but he declined to vex Congress with the question, so he said, because similar cases were pending and he could not hope to secure a decision before Congress adjourned.  It is doubtful whether this merciful consideration for Congress was uppermost in his mind in the year 1838.  The fact is, that Douglas wrote to Senator Thomas H. Benton to ascertain the proper procedure in such cases;[97] and abandoned the notion of carrying his case before Congress, when he learned how costly such a contest would be.[98] He had resigned his position as Register of the Land Office to enter the campaign, and he had now no other resources than his profession.

It was comforting to the wounded pride of the young man to have the plaudits of his own party, at least.  He had made a gallant fight; and when Democrats from all over the State met at a dinner in honor of Governor-elect Carlin, at Quincy, they paid him this generous tribute:  “Although so far defeated in the election that the certificate will be given to another, yet he has the proud gratification of knowing that the people are with him.  His untiring zeal, his firm integrity, and high order of talents, have endeared him to the Democracy of the State and they will remember him two years hence."[99] Meantime there was nothing left for him to do but to solicit a law practice.  He entered into partnership with a Springfield attorney by the name of Urquhart.

By the following spring, Douglas was again dabbling in local politics, and by late fall he was fully immersed in the deeper waters of national politics.  Preparations for the presidential campaign drew him out of his law office,—­where indeed there was nothing to detain him,—­and he was once again active in party conclaves.  He presided over a Democratic county convention, and lent a hand in the drafting of a platform.[100] In November he was summoned to answer Cyrus Walker, a Whig who was making havoc of the Democratic programme at a mass-meeting in the Court House.  In the absence of any reliable records, nothing more can be said of Douglas’s rejoinder than that it moved the Whigs in turn to summon reinforcements, in the person of the awkward but clever Lincoln.  The debate was prolonged far into the night; and on which side victory finally folded her wings, no man can tell.[101] Douglas made the stronger impression, though Whigs professed entire satisfaction with the performance of their protagonist.  There were some in the audience who took exception to Lincoln’s stale anecdotes, and who thought his manner clownish.[102]