The Dred Scott decision and Buchanan's endorsement fed northern suspicions of a slave power conspiracy to impose slavery everywhere. Events in Kansas, which still had two governments, heightened these fears. In the summer of 1857, Kansas had still another election, with so many irregularities that only 2,000 out of a possible 24,000 voters participated. They elected a proslavery slate of delegates to a constitutional convention meeting a Lecompton as a preparation for statehood.

Lincoln possibly was playing for larger stakes than just the senatorship. Although defeated, he had shambled into the national limelight in company with the most prominent northern politicians. Newspapers in the East published detailed accounts of the debates, and Lincoln began to emerge as a potential Republican nominee for president.

The time soon came for the settlers in Kansas to draw up a constitution and organize a territorial government. This brought them face to face with the crucial question: Was slavery to be allowed in Kansas or not? The proslavery forces rushed voters into the territory and elected a proslavery legislature, which promptly passed laws favoring slaveowners. The antislavery forces then drafted a constitution forbidding slavery and elected an antislavery legislature.

Yet by 1857 Kansas had enough people, chiefly free-soilers, to apply for statehood on a popular sovereignty basis. The proslavery forces, then in the saddle, devised a tricky document known at the Lecompton Constitution. The people were not allowed to vote for or against the constitution as a whole, but for the constitution either "with slavery" or "with no slavery." If they voted against slavery, one of the remaining provisions of the constitution would protect the owners of slaves already in Kansas. So whatever the outcome, there would still be black bondage in Kansas.

Late in 1857, President Buchanan faced a major test of his ability to suppress the slavery controversy.  In September, proslavery forces in Kansas met in Lecompton, the territorial capital, to draft a constitution that would bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state.  Recognizing that a proslavery constitution would be defeated in a free and fair election, proslavery delegates withheld the new state charter from the territory's voters.  Instead, they offered voters a referendum on whether they preferred "the constitution with slavery" or "the constitution without slavery

Douglas's response to another crisis in 1857, however, helped shore up his standing with his constituents.  During the previous winter, proslavery forces in Kansas met in the town of Lecompton, drafted a proslavery constitution, and applied for statehood.  Everyone knew that free-soilers outnumbered proslavery settlers by at least two to one but President Buchanan blessed the Lecompton constitution and instructed Congress to admit Kansas at the sixteenth slave state.  Republicans denounced the "Lecompton swindle" Douglas broke with the Democratic administration and came out

The Lecompton constitution became the central issue of an acrimonious congressional session in 1857-1858. Douglas declared political war on the administration over the issue, and led the fight in the Senate against admitting Kansas to statehood under the Lecompton constitution. At one point in February 1858, a wild sectional fistfight broke out among thirty congressman during an all-night debate on Lecompton.

The 'Little Giant's' [Douglas] loyalty to popular sovereignty, which still had a powerful appeal in Illinois, probably was decisive. Senators were then chosen by state legislatures; and in the general election that followed the debates, more pro-Douglas members weree elected than pro-Lincoln. Yet thanks to inequitable apportionment, the districts carried by Douglas supporters represented a smaller population than those carried by Lincoln supporters. 'Honest Abe' thus won a clear moral victory.

The most famous debate came at Freeport, Illinois, where Lincoln narly impaled his opponent on the horns of a dilemma. Suppose, he queried, the people of a territory should vote slavery down? The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision had decreed that they could not. Who would pervail, the Court or the people?...His [Douglas'] reply to Lincoln became known as the "Freeport Doctrine." No matter how the Supreme Court ruled, Douglas argued, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down.