idency. His determined opposition to the re-election of Douglas
became apparent as the Senatorial canvass progressed. The incidents
now to be related will explain this hostility, as well as bring to
the front one of the distinctive questions upon which much stress was
laid in the subsequent debates between Douglas and Lincoln.

A statesman of national reputation, the Hon. Robert J. Walker, was
at length appointed Governor of Kansas. During his brief administration
a convention assembled without his co-operation at Lecompton,
and formulated a Constitution under which application was soon made
for the admission of Kansas into the Union. This convention was
in part composed of non-residents, and in no sense reflected the
wishes of the majority of the _bona fide_ residents of the Territory.
The salient feature of the Constitution was that establishing
slavery. The Constitution was not submitted to the convention
to popular vote, but in due time forwarded to the President, and
by him laid before Congress, accompanied by a recommendation for
its approval, and the early admission of the new State into the
Union.

When the Lecompton Constitution came before the Senate, it at once
encountered the formidable opposition of Senator Douglas. In
unmeasured terms he denounced it as fraudulent, as antagonistic to
the wishes of the people of Kansas, and subversive of the basic
principle upon which the Territory had been organized. In the
attitude just assumed, Douglas at once found himself in line
with the Republicans, and in opposition to the administration he
had helped place in power. The breach thus created was destined
to remain unhealed. Moreover, his declaration of hostility to the
Lecompton Constitution was the beginning of the end of years of
close political affiliation with Southern Democratic statesmen.
From that moment Douglas lost prestige as a national leader of his
party. In more than one-half of the Democratic States he ceased to
be regarded as a probable or even possible candidate for the
Presidential succession. The hostility thus engendered followed
him to the Charleston convention of 1860, and throughout the exciting
Presidential contest which followed. But the humiliation of defeat
--brought about, as he believed, by personal hostility to himself--
was yet in the future. In the attempted admission of Kansas under
the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas was triumphant over the
administration and his forme