This pro-slavery coquetting, however, availed him nothing, as he felt himself obliged in the same speeches to defend his Freeport doctrine.  Having taken his seat in Congress, Senator Brown of Mississippi, toward the close of the short session, catechized him sharply on this point.

“If the territorial legislature refuses to act,” he inquired “will you act?  If it pass unfriendly acts, will you pass friendly?  If it pass laws hostile to slavery, will you annul them, and substitute laws favoring slavery in their stead?”

There was no evading these direct questions, and Douglas answered frankly: 

“I tell you, gentlemen of the South, in all candor, I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever carry any one Democratic State of the North on the platform that it is the duty of the Federal government to force the people of a Territory to have slavery when they do not want it.”

An extended discussion between Northern and Southern Democratic senators followed the colloquy, which showed that the Freeport doctrine had opened up an irreparable schism between the Northern and Southern wings of the Democratic party.

In all the speeches made by Douglas during his Southern tour, he continually referred to Mr. Lincoln as the champion of abolitionism, and to his doctrines as the platform of the abolition or Republican party.  The practical effect of this course was to extend and prolong the Illinois senatorial campaign of 1858, to expand it to national breadth, and gradually to merge it in the coming presidential campaign.  The effect of this was not only to keep before the public the position of Lincoln as the Republican champion of Illinois, but also gradually to lift him into general recognition as a national leader.  Throughout the year 1859 politicians and newspapers came to look upon Lincoln as the one antagonist who could at all times be relied on to answer and refute the Douglas arguments.  His propositions were so forcible and direct, his phraseology so apt and fresh, that they held the attention and excited comment.  A letter written by him in answer to an invitation to attend a celebration of Jefferson’s birthday in Boston, contains some notable passages: 

“Soberly, it is now no child’s play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.  One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.  The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.  And yet they are denied and evaded with no small show of success.  One dashingly calls them ‘glittering generalities.’  Another bluntly calls them ‘self-evident lies.’  And others insidiously argue that they apply to ‘superior races.’  These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect—­the supplanting the