incident that helped to make history. Though Douglas was at war with the
Administration, it was not certain that the quarrel might not be made
up. There was no other leader who would be so formidable at the head of
a reunited Democratic party. Lincoln pondered the question, how could
the rift between Douglas and the Democratic machine be made irrevocable?
And now a new phase of Lincoln appeared. It was the political strategist
He saw that if he would disregard his own chance of election-as he had
done from a simpler motive four years before--he could drive Douglas
into a dilemma from which there was no real escape. He confided his
purpose to his friends; they urged him not to do it. But he had made up
his mind as he generally did, without consultation, in the silence of
his own thoughts, and once having made it up, he was inflexible.

At Freeport, Lincoln made the move which probably lost him the
Senatorship. He asked a question which if Douglas answered it one way
would enable him to recover the favor of Illinois but would lose him
forever the favor of the slave-holders; but which, if he answered it
another way might enable him to make his peace at Washington but would
certainly lose him Illinois. The question was: "Can the people of a
United States Territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any
citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to
the formation of a State Constitution?"(5) In other words, is the Dred
Scott decision good law? Is it true that a slave-holder can take his
slaves into Kansas if the people of Kansas want to keep him out?

Douglas saw the trap. With his instantaneous facility he tried to cloud
the issue and extricate himself through evasion in the very manner Mrs.
Stowe has described. While dodging a denial of the court's authority,
he insisted that his doctrine of local autonomy was still secure because
through police regulation the local legislature could foster or strangle