The serious aspect of the matter, however, to Douglas was not the criticism of the Republicans, but the view taken by Southern Democratic leaders, of his “Freeport doctrine,” or doctrine of “unfriendly legislation.”  His opposition to the Lecompton Constitution in the Senate, grievous stumbling-block to their schemes as it had proved, might yet be passed over as a reckless breach of party discipline; but this new announcement at Freeport was unpardonable doctrinal heresy, as rank as the abolitionism of Giddings and Lovejoy.

The Freeport joint debate took place August 27, 1858.  When Congress convened on the first Monday in December of the same year, one of the first acts of the Democratic senators was to put him under party ban by removing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories, a position he had held for eleven years.  In due time, also, the Southern leaders broke up the Charleston convention rather than permit him to be nominated for President; and, three weeks later, Senator Benjamin of Louisiana frankly set forth, in a Senate speech, the light in which they viewed his apostacy: 

“We accuse him for this, to wit:  that having bargained with us upon a point upon which we were at issue, that it should be considered a judicial point; that he would abide the decision; that he would act under the decision, and consider it a doctrine of the party; that having said that to us here in the Senate, he went home, and, under the stress of a local election, his knees gave way; his whole person trembled.  His adversary stood upon principle and was beaten; and, lo! he is the candidate of a mighty party for the presidency of the United States.  The senator from Illinois faltered.  He got the prize for which he faltered; but, lo! the grand prize of his ambition to-day slips from his grasp, because of his faltering in his former contest, and his success in the canvass for the Senate, purchased for an ignoble price, has cost him the loss of the presidency of the United States.”

In addition to the seven joint debates, both Lincoln and Douglas made speeches at separate meetings of their own during almost every day of the three months’ campaign, and sometimes two or three speeches a day.  At the election which was held on November 2, 1858, a legislature was chosen containing fifty-four Democrats and forty-six Republicans, notwithstanding the fact that the Republicans had a plurality of thirty-eight hundred and twenty-one on the popular vote.  But the apportionment was based on the census of 1850, and did not reflect recent changes in political sentiment, which, if fairly represented, would have given them an increased strength of from six to ten members in the legislature.  Another circumstance had great influence in causing Lincoln’s defeat.  Douglas’s opposition to the Lecompton Constitution in Congress had won him great sympathy among a few Republican leaders in the Eastern States.  It was even whispered that Seward wished Douglas to succeed