This argument naturally excited the interest of Lincoln, who answered it in an elaborate speech two weeks later, and thus forced the issue into the campaign for the election of a Legislature which was to choose the successor of Mr. Douglas in the United States Senate. Douglas was in an unpleasant predicament. He was compelled to choose between the favor and support of the Buchanan administration and that of the people of Illinois. As the latter alternative was necessary to his public career, he adopted it, and when Congress met he attacked the administration with his usual force and ability. His course was approved by a large majority of the Democratic party in Illinois, but stimulated the hope of the Republicans of that State that they might defeat him and elect Abraham Lincoln, who was entitled to the honor because he had yielded his priority of claim to Lyman Trumbull in 1854 and was now recognized as the foremost champion of the new Republican party in Illinois. Therefore, when the Republican State Convention met in June, 1858, it adopted by acclamation a resolution declaring that he was the first and only choice of the Republican party for the United States Senate. Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, says,-- "He had been led all along to expect his nomination to the Senate, and with that in view had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred upon him. This speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that miscellaneous and convenient receptacle, his hat. As the Convention drew near he copied the whole on connected sheets, carefully revising every line and sentence, and fastened them together for reference during the delivery of the speech and for publication. A few weeks before the Convention, when he was at work on the speech, I remember that Jesse K. Dubois, who was Auditor of the State, came into the office and, seeing Lincoln busily writing, inquired what he was doing or what he was writing. Lincoln answered gruffly, 'It's something you may see or hear some time, but I'll not let you see it now.' After the Convention Lincoln met him on the street and said, 'Dubois, I can tell you what I was doing the other day when you came into my office. I was writing that speech, and I knew if I read the passage about 'the house divided against itself' to you, you would ask me to change or modify it, and that I was determined not to do. I had willed it so, and was willing, if necessary, to perish with it.'