party now pinned its faith to the efficiency of its organization, as
well as to the popularity of its candidate.

Douglas made a show of declining the nomination on the score of
ill-health, but yielded to the urgent solicitations of friends, who
would fain have him believe that he was the only Democrat who could
carry the district.[158] Secretly pleased to be overruled, Douglas
burned his bridges behind him by resigning his office, and plunged
into the thick of the battle. His opponent was O.H. Browning, a
Kentuckian by birth and a Whig by choice. It was Kentucky against
Vermont, South against North, for neither was unwilling to appeal to
sectional prejudice. Time has obscured the political issues which they
debated from Peoria to Macoupin and back; but history has probably
suffered no great loss. Men, not measures, were at stake in this
campaign, for on the only national issue which they seemed to have
discussed--Oregon--they were in practical agreement.[159] Both
cultivated the little arts which relieve the tedium of politics.
Douglas talked in heart to heart fashion with his "esteemed
fellow-citizens," inquired for the health of their families, expressed
grief when he learned that John had the measles and that Sally was
down with the chills and fever.[160] And if Browning was less
successful in this gentle method of wooing voters, it was because he
had less genuine interest in the plain common people, not because he
despised the petty arts of the politician.

The canvass was short but exhausting. Douglas addressed public
gatherings for forty successive days; and when election day came, he
was prostrated by a fever from which he did not fully recover for
months.[161] Those who gerrymandered the State did their work well.
Only one district failed to elect a Democratic Congressman. Douglas