owing his never-failing
faith in the political future. To a personal friend in Quincy,
Illinois, who had watched the campaign with unusual attention, Lincoln
wrote that same day: "Yours of the 13th was received some days ago.
The fight must go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be
surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats. Douglas had
the ingenuity to be supported in the late contest, both as the best
means to break down and to uphold the slave interest. No ingenuity can
keep these antagonistic elements in harmony long. Another explosion
will soon come."

[Sidenote] 1858.

Douglas was also greatly exhausted by the wearing labors of the
campaign; but he had the notable triumph of an assured reelection to
the Senate and the congratulations of his enthusiastic friends to
sustain and refresh him. Being an indefatigable worker, he was already
organizing a new and more ambitious effort. Three weeks after election
he started on a brief tour to the Southern States, making speeches at
Memphis and New Orleans, of which further mention will be made in the
next chapter. Perhaps he deemed it wise not to proceed immediately to
Washington, where Congress convened on the first Monday of December,
and thus to avoid a direct continuance of his battle with the Buchanan
Administration. If so, the device proved ineffectual. The President
and his partisans were determined to put the author of the "Freeport
doctrine" under public ban, and to that end, when Congress organized,
one of the first acts of the Senate majority was to depose Douglas
from his place as chairman of the Committee on Territories, which he
had held in that body for eleven years.

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[1] A local nickname by which the southern or pro-slavery portion of
Illinois was familiarly known.

[2] DOUGLAS'S QUESTIONS AND LINCOLN'S ANSWERS.

"_Question_ 1. 'I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as
he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the
fugitive-slave law?'

_Answer_. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the
unconditional repeal of the fugitive-slave law.

_Q_. 2. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day,
as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave-States
into the Union even if the people want them?'

_A_. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the
admission of any more slave-States into the Union.

_Q_. 3. 'I want to k