After his rebuff in Chicago he plunged into the Illinois campaign, which was fought on the Kansas-Nebraska issue. In the northern part of the State his receptions were chilly and his audiences unfriendly, sometime indulging in boisterous demonstrations of hostility. "Burning effigies, effigies suspended by robes, banners with all the vulgar mottoes and inscriptions that passion and prejudice could suggest, were displayed at various points. Whenever he attempted to speak, the noisy demonstrations which had proved so successful in Chicago were repeated." But as he moved southward the people became more cordial. The great center of political activity was Springfield, where the State Fair, lasting through the first week of October, attracted thousands of people, and the politicians assembled to make speeches and plan campaigns. He spoke on October 3rd at the State House. The most important matter pending was the choice of the legislature which should elect a Senator to succeed his colleague Shields, who was a candidate for reelection. The opposition was a heterogeneous compound of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats and all other political elements opposed to the revised Democratic creed. The leading candidates of this fusion party for Senator were Lyman Trumbull, a Democrat opposed to the new program of slavery extension, and Abraham Lincoln, the recognized leader of the Whig party of the State. It was expected that Lincoln would answer Douglas on the following day. This political tourney held in the little Western Capital was in many ways a rather notable event. The great question of human slavery had now definitely passed from the region of mere moral disquisition into that of active statesmanship. It had become the decisive practical problem of the time, the attempt to solve which was revolutionizing party politics and sweeping away the political philosophy of the past. The opinions of men on this question were determining their associations and directing their conduct, regardless of minor matters, which are now forgotten. The South was united for the support and extension of slavery. The North was tending to unity in the resolve to prevent its further spread. Already the new generation of Southern statesmen were plotting to divide the Union and were bent on extending the slave holding States across the continent, believing that when the separation occurred, California would join the Southern Confederation and thus give them a Republic extending from ocean to ocean and controlling the mouth of the Mississippi.