Article one, section two, clause four of the U.S. Constitution mandated that chief executives of the state issue writs of election for special elections to fill vacancies in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Illinois General Assembly affirmed this in a general election law enacted in 1829.

Governor William G. Bissell issued a writ of election on November 29, 1858 for a special election to be held on January 4, 1859 to fill Harris’s vacated seat for the second session of the Thirty-Fifth Congress. Democrat Charles D. Hodges won the election and took his seat on January 20, 1859.

In the state’s local elections as a whole, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in the state, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General Assembly and Douglas ultimately won reelection to the U.S. Senate. The General Assembly confirmed his reelection in an election held on January 5, 1859. Through the campaign, however, and in particular through his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln gained recognition as well as standing within the national Republican Party.

Douglas and his followers having to “face the musick” references Douglas’s political future in light of the Dred Scott Decision and the aftermath of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

One of the most controversial issues facing America prior to the Civil War was the status of slavery in new territories acquired through purchase, treaty, or military conquest. See the Northwest Ordinance; Missouri Compromise; Mexican War; Wilmot Proviso; Compromise of 1850; Kansas-Nebraska Act; Bleeding Kansas; Scott v. Sandford.

The core issue in the race for U.S. Senate was how the status of slavery should be decided in new states joining the Union. Douglas stood on the idea of popular sovereignty: that people living in the territories being admitted to the Union should have the power over whether or not that state would be admitted as a free state or a slave state. Lincoln ran on the Republican platform of limiting the expansion of slavery. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Scott v. Sandford, which banned the exclusion of slavery from U. S. territories, stood against Douglas’s popular sovereignty doctrine. The Dred Scott Decision became a recurring issue in the debates. Lincoln addressed this contradiction at the second debate at Freeport when he asked Douglas, “Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?” Douglas’s response to this question was “It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under the constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave territory or a free territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska Bill.” This answer, in which Douglas affirmed his support of popular sovereignty over his support of the ruling in Scott v. Sandford, became known as the Freeport Doctrine. At the third debate at Jonesboro, Douglas affirmed in answering one of Lincoln’s questions that he would neither vote for a federal slave code nor anti-slavery laws for territories; pro-slavery or anti-slavery legislation was to be left to popular sovereignty.

This stance was popular among Illinois Democrats, who supported the popular sovereignty doctrine espoused by Douglas and elected him to the Senate in the election of 1858. This stance was enough to win the Senate election in Illinois, but it was very unpopular among the Southern Democrats who supported the Dred Scott Decision and saw it as a massive step in spreading slavery into new territories and states.

Douglas, who broke with President James Buchanan and his administration in December 1857 over the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution for the Kansas Territory, faced open hostility from his Democratic colleagues when he returned to Washington, DC, for the second session of the Thirty-Fifth Congress, scheduled to open on December 6, 1858. Senators Jefferson Davis, James Slidell, Jesse Bright, and Graham Fitch, among others, were, as one senator wrote, “keen for his blood.” Rumors had it that the Buchanan administration would introduce a congressional slave code as a test of party loyalty. Administration supporters succeeded in getting Douglas removed as chairman of the Committee on Territories, hoping to provoke him into an attack on the administration. Davis and others were looking for Douglas to clarify his position on slavery in the territories in light of the Freeport Doctrine. Douglas refused, however, to address the Freeport Doctrine or his removal and avoided any action which could be construed as opposing the administration or the South. He would finally addressed the Southern senators during a debate in the Senate in February 1859. Douglas again opposed congressional interference for or against slavery in the territories and condemned Southern Democrats for their proposal of a congressional slave code against the Democratic platform. Douglas remained in the party, but his national reputation among Democrats was tarnished, and he would never recover. He would lose the presidential election to Lincoln in 1860.

The election to fill Harris’s vacated seat for the Thirty-Six Congress was held on November 8, 1859. Sixth Congressional District Democrats meeting on September 28, 1859 nominated John A. McClernand over Hodges and others. Republicans selected John M. Palmer on September 29. McClernand won the election with 58.9 percent of the vote to 41 percent for Palmer. McClernand took his seat on December 5, 1859.