The Toombs bill passed the Senate over the impotent Republican
opposition; but in the House it encountered a hostile majority which
would not so much as consider a proposition emanating from Democratic
sources.[585] Douglas charged the Republicans with the deliberate wish
and intent to keep the Kansas issue alive. "All these gentlemen want,"
he declared, "is to get up murder and bloodshed in Kansas for
political effect. They do not mean that there shall be peace until
after the presidential election.... Their capital for the presidential
election is blood. We may as well talk plainly. An angel from Heaven
could not write a bill to restore peace in Kansas that would be
acceptable to the Abolition Republican party previous to the
presidential election."[586]

"Bleeding Kansas" was, indeed, a most effective campaign cry. Before
Congress adjourned, the Republicans had found other campaign material
in the majority report of the Kansas investigating committee. The
Democrats issued the minority report as a counter-blast, and also
circulated three hundred thousand copies of Douglas's 12th of March
report, which was held to be campaign material of the first order.
Douglas himself paid for one-third of these out of his own
pocket.[587] No one could accuse him of sulking in his tent. Whatever
personal pique he may have felt at losing the nomination, he was
thoroughly loyal to his party. He gave unsparingly of his time and
strength to the cause of Democracy, speaking most effectively in the
doubtful States. And when Pennsylvania became the pivotal State, as
election day drew near, Douglas gave liberally to the campaign fund
which his friend Forney was collecting to carry the State for
Buchanan.[588]

Illinois, too, was now reckoned as a doubtful State. Douglas had