He was rather an ill-ordered growth of the early West, a man who had toiled and suffered from his youth up. He was full of sharp corners and rough edges, and his nature was a strange mixture of patience and melancholy. As Mr. Stephens said, he regarded slavery "in the light of a religious mysticism," and believed that his mission to beat it down was God-ordained. And yet he was a statesman, a public man of breadth and prominence, a speaker of force and persuasion. He had the robust courage of a pioneer and the high purpose of a reformer. It was in this debate that Mr. Lincoln, at Freeport, Ill., asked Mr. Douglas that memorable question, on the stump: "Can the people of a Territory, in any lawful way, exclude slavery from their limits, prior to the formation of a State constitution?" Mr. Douglas promptly answered, "Yes." This was his doctrine of popular sovereignty. But the answer cost him the Democratic nomination to the Presidency. The theory that a mass of settlers, squatting in a Territory, could fix and determine the character of the Territory's domestic institutions, was repugnant to a large portion of the Southern people. They claimed that under the Dred Scott decision, slavery already existed in the Territories, and must be protected by the Constitution; and that it was not competent for the people to determine for themselves the question of slavery or no slavery, until they formed a constitution for admission into the Union as a State. The election in Illinois, in the fall of 1858, gave Stephen A. Douglas a majority of eight in the General Assembly over Abraham Lincoln, and Douglas was reelected for the new term. In this contest he had been opposed by the Buchanan Democrats, who cast over 8000 votes in Illinois. In the Senate, the debate on popular sovereignty was renewed. This time Jefferson Davis, a senator from Mississippi, attacked this position as incompatible with the Constitution and the laws. Mr. Davis was a skillful debater. His mind was singularly graceful and refined. He was eloquent, logical, and courageous. His career as soldier and statesman, as War Minister under Pierce, and as senator for Mississippi, made him a prominent figure. He was cultured, classical, and well rounded, equipped by leisure and long study for the career before him. He had vanquished Sergeant S. Prentiss in public discussion over the national bank, and contested, inch by inch, the domination of Henry S. Foote in Mississippi. His career in the Mexican war had been a notable one. Allied to Zachary Taylor by marriage, a West Pointer by training, a Southern planter by occupation, he was a typical defender of slavery as it existed. Davis was as slender and frail as Douglas was compact and sinewy. Like Lincoln, his mind grasped great principles, while Douglas was fighting for points and expedients.