Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its effective repeal of the Missouri Compromise reawakened Lincoln’s passion for politics, and he threw himself into the congressional election campaign in the fall of 1854, crisscrossing Illinois to deliver speeches against the Kansas-Nebraska Act and in support of anti-Nebraska candidates. He even allowed himself to become a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly (albeit unwillingly at first). As the election campaign reached its climax, Lincoln’s name began to circulate as a possible nominee for one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats. In November and December 1854, he wrote confidential letters to political allies, seeking support for his candidacy and information about his prospects. He won a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives, but in late-November 1854, he declined to serve in order to run for the U.S. Senate. When the General Assembly met in a joint session on February 8, 1855, to elect a U.S. senator, ten rounds of voting were needed to finally determine a victor. Lincoln received a majority of the anti-Nebraska votes until the tenth and final ballot, when he withdrew and urged his supporters to vote for anti-Nebraska Democrat Lyman Trumbull in order to ensure that an anti-Nebraska politician filled the seat. With the votes of Lincoln’s supporters, Trumbull won the seat. See 1854 Federal Election.

Owen Lovejoy was elected to the Nineteenth Illinois House of Representatives representing Bureau County. Washburne and others believed that Lincoln needed the support of Lovejoy and other Free Soilers in the General Assembly to win the senatorial election, but they were concerned because Lovejoy held more radical views on the abolition of slavery than Lincoln. Jesse O. Norton and Washburne urged Lincoln to change his position on the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law to improve his prospects among the Free Soilers. In a letter to Lincoln dated December 26, 1854, Washburne assured Lincoln that Joshua R. Giddings was writing Lovejoy with his views on Lincoln’s candidacy to be shared with Free Soilers in the General Assembly. When he learned that Lovejoy had not received Gidding’s letter, Washburne assured Lincoln that Giddings had telegraphed Lovejoy about the letter’s disposition. Lovejoy apparently never received Giddings first letter, prompting Gidding to write Lovejoy a second letter.

In a list of members of the Illinois General Assembly that Lincoln created around January 1855, Lincoln listed Lovejoy as an abolitionist--the only legislator so designated. Lovejoy voted for Lincoln on the first three ballots, then switched to William B. Ogden for four ballots, before settling on Trumbull on the eighth ballot.