Douglas made a show of declining the nomination on the score of ill-health, but yielded to the urgent solicitations of friends, who would fain have him believe that he was the only Democrat who could carry the district.[158] Secretly pleased to be overruled, Douglas burned his bridges behind him by resigning his office, and plunged into the thick of the battle. His opponent was O.H. Browning, a Kentuckian by birth and a Whig by choice. It was Kentucky against Vermont, South against North, for neither was unwilling to appeal to sectional prejudice. Time has obscured the political issues which they debated from Peoria to Macoupin and back; but history has probably suffered no great loss. Men, not measures, were at stake in this campaign, for on the only national issue which they seemed to have discussed--Oregon--they were in practical agreement.[159] Both cultivated the little arts which relieve the tedium of politics. Douglas talked in heart to heart fashion with his "esteemed fellow-citizens," inquired for the health of their families, expressed grief when he learned that John had the measles and that Sally was down with the chills and fever.[160] And if Browning was less successful in this gentle method of wooing voters, it was because he had less genuine interest in the plain common people, not because he despised the petty arts of the politician. The canvass was short but exhausting. Douglas addressed public gatherings for forty successive days; and when election day came, he was prostrated by a fever from which he did not fully recover for months.[161] Those who gerrymandered the State did their work well. Only one district failed to elect a Democratic Congressman. Douglas had a majority over Browning of four hundred and sixty-one votes.[162] This cheering news hastened his convalescence, so that by November he was able to visit his mother in Canandaigua. Member of Congress at the age of thirty! He had every reason to be well satisfied with himself. He was fully conscious that he had begun a new chapter in his career. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 118: Ford, History of Illinois, pp. 213-214.] [Footnote 119: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 454-455.] [Footnote 120: Why McClernand was passed over is not clear. Douglas entered upon the duties of his office November 30, 1840.] [Footnote 121: Wheeler, Biographical History of Congress, p. 74.] [Footnote 122: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 43.] [Footnote 123: Ford, History of Illinois, p. 217.] [Footnote 124: _Ibid._, pp. 212-222.] [Footnote 125: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, p. 456.] [Footnote 126: Illinois _State Register_, January 29, 1841; Ford, History of Illinois, p. 220.] [Footnote 127: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 457-458.] [Footnote 128: _Ibid._, pp. 457-458.]