Up to the years 1857 and 1858 no man in this nation had a higher or more exalted opinion of the character, the services, and the political integrity of the Senator from Illinois [Douglas] than I had....  Sir, it has been with reluctance and sorrow that I have been obliged to pluck down my idol from his place on high, and to refuse to him any more support or confidence as a member of the party.  I have done so, I trust, upon no light or unworthy ground.  I have not done so alone.  The causes that have operated on me have operated on the Democratic party of the United States, and have operated an effect which the whole future life of the Senator will be utterly unable to obliterate.  It is impossible that confidence thus lost can be restored.  On what ground has that confidence been forfeited, and why is it that we now refuse him our support and fellowship?  I have stated our reasons to-day.  I have appealed to the record.  I have not followed him back in the false issue or the feigned traverse that he makes in relation to matters that are not now in contest between him and the Democratic party.  The question is not what we all said or believed in 1850 or in 1856.  How idle was it to search ancient precedents and accumulate old quotations from what Senators may have at different times said in relation to their principles and views.  The precise point, the direct arraignment, the plain and explicit allegation made against the Senator from Illinois is not touched by him in all of his speech.

  [Sidenote] Benjamin, Senate Speech, May 22, 1860.  Pamphlet.

We accuse him for this, to wit:  that having bargained with us upon a point upon which we were at issue, that it should be considered a judicial point; that he would abide the decision; that he would act under the decision, and consider it a doctrine of the party; that having said that to us here in the Senate, he went home, and under the stress of a local election, his knees gave way; his whole person trembled.  His adversary stood upon principle and was beaten; and lo! he is the candidate of a mighty party for the Presidency of the United States.  The Senator from Illinois faltered.  He got the prize for which he faltered; but lo! the grand prize of his ambition to-day slips from his grasp because of his faltering in his former contest, and his success in the canvass for the Senate, purchased for an ignoble price, has cost him the loss of the Presidency of the United States.

  [Sidenote] 1858.

The Senatorial canvass in Illinois came to a close with the election on the 2d of November and resulted in a victory for Douglas.  The Republicans, on their State ticket, polled 125,430 votes; the Douglas Democrats, 121,609; the Buchanan Democrats, 5071.  By this plurality the Republican State officers were chosen.  But in respect to members of the Legislature the case stood differently, and when in the following January the Senatorial election took place in joint session of the two Houses, Douglas received the vote of every Democrat, 54 members, and Lincoln the vote of every Republican, 46 members, whereupon Douglas was declared elected Senator of the United States for six years from the 4th of March, 1859.