From the first, Lincoln and Douglas were thrown constantly together
in the social life of the town, and often pitted against each other in
what were the real forums of the State at that day--the space around
the huge "Franklin" stove of some obliging store-keeper, the steps of
somebody's law office, a pile of lumber, or a long timber, lying in
the public square, where the new State-house was going up.
In the fall of 1837 Douglas was nominated for Congress on the
Democratic ticket. His Whig opponent was Lincoln's law partner, John
T. Stuart. The campaign which the two conducted was one of the most
remarkable in the history of the State. For five months of the spring
and summer of 1838 they rode together from town to town all over the
northern part of Illinois (Illinois at that time was divided into but
three congressional districts; the third, in which Sangamon County
was included, being made up of the twenty-two northernmost counties),
speaking six days out of seven. When the election came off in August,
1838, out of thirty-six thousand votes cast, Stuart received a
majority of only fourteen; but even that majority the Democrats always
contended was won unfairly. The campaign was watched with intense
interest by the young politicians of Springfield; no one of them felt
a deeper interest in it than Lincoln, who was himself at the same time
a candidate for member of the State legislature.
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