re the struggle really is."[769]

To the mind of Douglas, the issue presented itself in quite another
form. "He [Lincoln] says that he looks forward to a time when slavery
shall be abolished everywhere. I look forward to a time when each
State shall be allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep
slavery forever, it is not my business, but its own; if it chooses to
abolish slavery, it is its own business,--not mine. I care more for
the great principle of self-government, the right of the people to
rule, than I do for all the negroes in Christendom. I would not
endanger the perpetuity of this Union, I would not blot out the great
inalienable rights of the white men, for all the negroes that ever
existed."[770]

With this encounter at Alton, the joint debates, but not the campaign
closed. Douglas continued to speak at various strategic points, in
spite of inclement weather and physical exhaustion, up to the eve of
the election.[771] The canvass had continued just a hundred days,
during which Douglas had made one hundred and thirty speeches.[772]
During the last weeks of the campaign, election canards designed to
injure Douglas were sedulously circulated, adding no little
uncertainty to the outcome in doubtful districts. The most damaging of
these stories seems to have emanated from Senator John Slidell of
Louisiana, whose midsummer sojourn in Illinois has already been noted.
A Chicago journal published the tale that Douglas's slaves in the
South were "the subjects of inhuman and disgraceful treatment--that
they were hired out to a factor at fifteen dollars per annum
each--that he, in turn, hired them out to others in lots, and that
they were ill-fed, over-worked, and in every way so badly treated that
they were spoken of in the neighborhood where they are held as a
disgrace to all slave-holders and the system they support." The
explicit denial of the story came from Slidell some weeks after the
election, when the slander had accomplished the desired purpose.[773]

All signs pointed to a heavy vote for both tickets. As the campaign
drew to a close, the excitement reached a pitch rarely equalled even
in presidential elections. Indeed, the total vote cast exceeded that
of 1856 by many thousands,--an increase that cannot be wholly
accounted for by the growth of population in these years.[774] The
Republican State ticket was elected by less than four thousand votes
over the Democratic ticket. The relative strength of