"It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution; the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local Legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who will, by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension." The supporters of Douglas shouted with satisfaction at the clever way in which he had escaped the trap Lincoln had set for him. His re-election to the Senate was practically secured, and Lincoln had been defeated at his own game. Lincoln's friends were correspondingly depressed, and in their despondency admitted that their favorite had no longer any prospect of election; that he had thrown his own chances away. Mr. Douglas was re-elected; but when Congress met in December, and he was removed by the Democratic caucus from the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Territories, which he had held for eleven years, because he had betrayed the slave-holders in his answer to Lincoln, at Freeport, the Republicans of Illinois began to realize the political sagacity of their leader. Then when, for the same reason, the Democratic National Convention at Charleston was broken up by the Southern delegates rather than accept Douglas as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, Lincoln's reputation as a political prophet was established. In 1861 Lincoln asked Joseph Medill, of the _Chicago Tribune_, if he recalled his opposition to putting that fatal question to Douglas. "Yes," replied Medill, "I recollect it very well. It lost Douglas the Presidency, but it lost you the Senatorship." "Yes," said Mr. Lincoln. "And I have won the place he was playing for."