Ten years had not gone by, before the modest Lincoln, then so humbly expressing this noble sentiment, and to whom at that moment "The race of ambition seemed a flat failure;" ten years had not passed, ere he had reached an eminence on which his name filled, not a nation only, but the world; and he had indeed so reached it, that the oppressed did share with him in the elevation; and so far had he passed his then great rival, that the name of Douglas will be carried down to posterity, chiefly because of its association as a competitor with Lincoln. But in many particulars Douglas was not an unworthy competitor. The contest between these two champions was perhaps the most remarkable in American history. They were the acknowledged leaders, each of his party. Douglas had been a prominent candidate for the presidency, was well known and personally popular, not only in the West, but throughout the Union. Both were men of great and marked individuality of character. The immediate prize was the Senatorship of the great State of Illinois, and, in the future, the presidency. The result would largely influence the struggle for freedom in Kansas, and the question of slavery throughout the Union. The canvass attracted the attention of the people everywhere, and the speeches were reported and published, not only in the leading papers in the State, but reporters were sent from most of the large cities, to report the incidents of the debates, and describe the conflict. Douglas was at this time unquestionably the leading debater in the United States Senate. For years he had been accustomed to meet the great leaders of the nation in Congress, and he had rarely been discomfited. He had contended with Jefferson Davis, and Toombs, and Hunter, and with Chase, and Sumner, and Seward; and his friends claimed that he was the equal, if not the superior, of the ablest. He was fertile in resources, severe in denunciation, familiar with political history, and had participated so many years in Congressional debate, that he handled with readiness and facility all the weapons of political controversy. Of indomitable physical and moral courage, he was certainly among the most formidable men in the nation on the stump. In Illinois, where he had hosts of friends and enthusiastic followers, he possessed a power over the masses unequaled by any other man, a most striking exhibition of which was exhibited in this canvass, in which he held to himself the whole Democratic party of the State. The administration of Buchanan, with all its patronage wielded by the wily and unscrupulous Slidell, and running a separate ticket, was able to detach only 5,000 out of 126,000 votes from him. There was something exciting, something which stirred the blood, in the boldness with which he threw himself into the conflict, and dealt his blows right and left against the Republican party on one side, and the administration of Buchanan, which sought his defeat, on the other.