At Richmond, Douglas received an ovation which recalled the days when Clay was the idol of the Whigs;[870] but as he journeyed northward he felt more and more the hostility of Breckinridge men, and marked the disposition of many of his own supporters to strike an alliance with them.  Unhesitatingly he threw the weight of his personal influence against fusion.  At Baltimore, he averred that while Breckinridge was not a disunionist, every disunionist was a Breckinridge man.[871] And at Reading, he said, “For one, I can never fuse, and never will fuse with a man who tells me that the Democratic creed is a dogma, contrary to reason and to the Constitution....  I have fought twenty-seven pitched battles, since I entered public life, and never yet traded with nominations or surrendered to treachery."[872] With equal pertinacity he refused to countenance any attempts at fusion in North Carolina.[873] Even more explicitly he declared against fusion in a speech at Erie:  “No Democrat can, without dishonor, and a forfeiture of self-respect and principle, fuse with anybody who is in favor of intervention, either for or against slavery....  As Democrats we can never fuse either with Northern Abolitionists or Southern Bolters and Secessionists."[874]

In spite of these protests and admonitions, Douglas men in several of the doubtful States entered into more or less definite agreement with the supporters of Breckinridge.  The pressure put upon him in New York by those to whom he was indebted for his nomination, was almost too strong to be resisted.  Yet he withstood all entreaties, even to maintain a discreet silence and let events take their course.  Hostile newspapers expressed his sentiments when they represented him as opposed to fusion, “all the way from Maine to California."[875] “Douglas either must have lost his craft as a politician,” commented Raymond, in the editorial columns of the Times, “or be credited with steadfast convictions."[876]

Adverse comment on Douglas’s personal canvass had now ceased.  Wise men recognized that he was preparing the public mind for a crisis, as no one else could.  He set his face westward, speaking at numerous points.[877] Continuous speaking had now begun to tell upon him.  At Cincinnati, he was so hoarse that he could not address the crowds which had gathered to greet him, but he persisted in speaking on the following day at Indianapolis.  He paused in Chicago only long enough to give a public address, and then passed on into Iowa.[878] Among his own people he unbosomed himself as he had not done before in all these weeks of incessant public speaking.  “I am no alarmist.  I believe that this country is in more danger now than at any other moment since I have known anything of public life.  It is not personal ambition that has induced me to take the stump this year.  I say to you who know me, that the presidency has no charms for me.  I do not believe that it is my interest as an ambitious man, to be President this year if I could.  But I do love this Union.  There is no sacrifice on earth that I would not make to preserve it."[879]