became a member of the Legislature, a State's attorney, secretary of
state, a judge on the supreme bench of Illinois, three times a
Representative in Congress, and a Senator of the United States when only
thirty-nine years old. In the National Democratic convention of 1852 he
appeared even as an aspirant to the nomination for the Presidency, as the
favorite of "young America," and received a respectable vote. He had far
outstripped Lincoln in what is commonly called political success and in
reputation. But it had frequently happened that in political campaigns
Lincoln felt himself impelled, or was selected by his Whig friends, to
answer Douglas's speeches; and thus the two were looked upon, in a large
part of the State at least, as the representative combatants of their
respective parties in the debates before popular meetings. As soon,
therefore, as, after the passage of his Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Douglas
returned to Illinois to defend his cause before his constituents,
Lincoln, obeying not only his own impulse, but also general expectation,
stepped forward as his principal opponent. Thus the struggle about the
principles involved in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, or, in a broader sense,
the struggle between freedom and slavery, assumed in Illinois the outward
form of a personal contest between Lincoln and Douglas; and, as it
continued and became more animated, that personal contest in Illinois was
watched with constantly increasing interest by the whole country. When,
in 1858, Douglas's senatorial term being about to expire, Lincoln was
formally designated by the Republican convention of Illinois as their
candidate for the Senate, to take Douglas's place, and the two
contestants agreed to debate the questions at issue face to face in a
series of public meetings, the eyes of the whole American people were
turned eagerly to that one point: and the spectacle reminded one of those
lays of ancient times telling of two armies, in battle array, standing
still to see their two principal champions fight out the contested cause
between the lines in single combat.