Douglas was also greatly exhausted by the wearing labors of the campaign; but he had the notable triumph of an assured reëlection to the Senate and the congratulations of his enthusiastic friends to sustain and refresh him. Being an indefatigable worker, he was already organizing a new and more ambitious effort. Three weeks after election he started on a brief tour to the Southern States, making speeches at Memphis and New Orleans, of which further mention will be made in the next chapter. Perhaps he deemed it wise not to proceed immediately to Washington, where Congress convened on the first Monday of December, and thus to avoid a direct continuance of his battle with the Buchanan Administration. If so, the device proved ineffectual. The President and his partisans were determined to put the author of the "Freeport doctrine" under public ban, and to that end, when Congress organized, one of the first acts of the Senate majority was to depose Douglas from his place as chairman of the Committee on Territories, which he had held in that body for eleven years. ---------- [1] A local nickname by which the southern or pro-slavery portion of Illinois was familiarly known. [2] DOUGLAS'S QUESTIONS AND LINCOLN'S ANSWERS. "_Question_ 1. 'I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive-slave law?' _Answer_. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive-slave law. _Q_. 2. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave-States into the Union even if the people want them?' _A_. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave-States into the Union. _Q_. 3. 'I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make?' _A_. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. _Q_. 4. 'I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?' _A_. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. _Q_. 5. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different States?' _A_. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different States. _Q_. 6. 'I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line?' _A_. I am impliedly if not expressly pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories.