In 1858, Stephen A. Douglas, a leading Democrat, ran for reelection to the United States Senate. Everyone thought that if he was elected, Douglas would run for President in 1860. Therefore, the Republican party hoped it could stop him now. Republicans in Illinois chose Abraham Lincoln to challenge Douglas.

Alarmed by the growing number of northern settlers, bands of Missourians, labeled "border ruffians" by the Republican press, rode into Kansas prepared to vote as many times as necessary to install a proslavery government. In the fall of 1854 they cast at least 1,700 illegal ballots and sent a proslavery territorial delegate to Congress. When the time came for the election of a territorial legislature the following spring, even greater efforts were needed, for numerous Free Soil settlers had taken up claims during the winter. But Atchison was equal to the task.

The Republican Party opposed Douglas' position, but so did southern Democrats. Still, Douglas won the election and kept his Senate seats. On the other hand, Lincoln lost the election but gained a national reputation. Some Republicans began to think of this plain-speaking man as a possible presidential candidate.

During the debates, Lincoln spoke forcefully against premitting slavery in the territories. He said that the United States could not survive "half slave and half free." Douglas supported popular sovereignty, which was the right of territories to vote to allow or ban slavery within their borders. Neither man liked slavery, but they saw different ways of dealing with the issue.

Slave owners were pleased because the new law opened Kansas and Nebraska to slavery. Many Northern farmers and workers who wanted to move west opposed the law. They worried that rich Southern planters would grab the best land in these territories and use slave labor to farm it. They demanded that the western lands be "free soil." Many "free soilers" joined with abolitionists to form the Republican Party. The Republicans believed that no person should own another and that all new states should be free states.

Yet Buchanan had compelling reasons to accept the Lecompton constitution as the basis for the admission of Kansas as a sate. The South, which had provided him with 112 of his 174 electoral votes in 1856, supported the constitution. Buchanan knew, moreover, that only about two hundred slaves resided in Kansas, and he believed that the prospects for slavery in the remaining territories were slight. The contention over slavery in Kansas struck him as another example of how extremists could turn minor issues into major ones.

Douglas was a skillfull politician. His answer to Lincoln became known as the Freeport Doctrine, after the Illinois town where the debate took place. Douglas cleverly replied that the legislature of a territory could refuse to pass a law supporting slavery and in effect could exclude slavery from the territory. Douglas' statement met with enough approval in Illinois to elect him Senator. Nevertheless, the Freeport Doctrine weakened Douglas in the South. By doing so, it also cost him the nomination for the Presidency in 1860 by a united Democratic party.

Throngs of people came to seven Illinoise towns to hear Lincoln and Dougals vigorously debate the issues of the day. Newspapers in every section of the land reported the debates. Lincoln greatly impressed those who heard him and many who read what he said.

To oppose Douglas, the Illinois Republicans put up Abraham Lincoln. Born in a log cabin in Kentucky, Lincoln was a self-made man. Gifted with a down-to earth sense of humor and with much political shrewdness, Lincoln was a match for Douglas in wit, in logical argument, and in general ability.