It was among Lincoln's own friends, however, that his speeches produced the deepest impression. They had believed him to be strong, but probably there was no one of them who had not felt dubious about his ability to meet Douglas. Many even feared a fiasco. Gradually it began to be clear to them that Lincoln was the stronger. Could it be that Lincoln really was a great man? The young Republican journalists of the "Press and Tribune"--Scripps, Hitt, Medill--began to ask themselves the question. One evening as they talked over Lincoln's argument a letter was received. It came from a prominent Eastern statesman. "Who is this man that is replying to Douglas in your State?" he asked. "Do you realize that no greater speeches have been made on public questions in the history of our country; that his knowledge of the subject is profound, his logical unanswerable, his style inimitable?" Similar letters kept coming from various parts of the country. Before the campaign was over Lincoln's friends were exultant. Their favorite was a great man, "a full-grown man," as one of them wrote in his paper. The country at large watched Lincoln with astonishment. When the debates began there were Republicans in Illinois of wider national reputation. Judge Lyman Trumbull, then Senator; was better known. He was an able debater, and a speech which he made in August against Douglas's record called from the New York "Evening Post" the remark: "This is the heaviest blow struck at Senator Douglas since he took the field in Illinois; it is unanswerable, and we suspect that it will be fatal." Trumbull's speech the "Post" afterwards published in pamphlet form. Besides Trumbull, Owen Lovejoy, Oglesby, and Palmer were all speaking. That Lincoln should not only have so far outstripped men of his own party, but should have out-argued Douglas, was the cause of comment everywhere. "No man of this generation," said the "Evening Post" editorially, at the close of the debate, "has grown more rapidly before the country than Lincoln in this canvass." As a matter of fact, Lincoln had attracted the attention of all the thinking men of the country. "The first thing that really awakened my interest in him," says Henry Ward Beecher, "was his speech parallel with Douglas in Illinois, and indeed it was that manifestation of ability that secured his nomination to the Presidency." But able as were Lincoln's arguments, deep as was the impression he had made, he was not elected to the senatorship. Douglas won fairly enough; though it is well to note that if the Republicans did not elect a senator they gained a substantial number of votes over those polled in 1856.