This debate was not a mere incident in American politics. It marked an era. Its influence and effect were co-extensive with the Republic. It introduced a new and distinct phase in the controversy that was engrossing all minds. The position of Douglas separated him from the Southern Democracy, and this, of itself, was a fact of great significance. The South saw that the ablest leader of the Northern Democracy had been compelled, in order to save himself at home, to abjure the very doctrine on which the safety of slave institutions depended. The propositions enunciated by Douglas in answer to the questions of Mr. Lincoln, in the Freeport debate, were as distasteful to the Southern mind as the position of Mr. Lincoln himself. Lincoln advocated a positive inhibition of slavery by the General Government. Mr. Douglas proposed to submit Southern rights under the Constitution to the decision of the first mob or rabble that might get possession of a Territorial legislature, and pass a police regulation hostile to slavery. Against this construction of the Constitution the South protested, and the protest carried with it implacable hostility to Douglas. The separation of the Democratic party into warring factions was, therefore, inevitable. The line of division was the same on which the Republican party had been founded. It was the North against the South, the South against the North. The great mass of Northern Democrats began to consolidate in support of Douglas as determinedly as the mass of Northern Whigs had followed Seward. The Southern Democrats began, at the same time, to organize their States against Douglas. Until his break from the regular ranks in his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas had enjoyed boundless popularity with his party in the South. In every slave State, there was still a small number of his old supporters who remained true to him. But the great host had left him. He could not be trusted. He had failed to stand by the extreme faith; he had refused to respond to its last requirement. Even at the risk of permanently dissevering the Democratic party, the Southern leaders resolved to destroy Douglas.