rumor afloat that the editor of the New York _Tribune_ favored Douglas
for the presidency.[673] On at least two occasions, Greeley was in
conference with Senator Douglas at the latter's residence. To the
gossiping public this was evidence enough that the rumor was correct.
And it may well be that Douglas dallied with the hope that a great
Constitutional Union party might be formed.[674] But he could hardly
have received much encouragement from the Republicans, with whom he
was consorting, for so far from losing their political identity, they
calculated upon bringing him eventually within the Republican
fold.[675]

A Constitutional Union party, embracing Northern and Southern
Unionists of Whig or Democratic antecedents, might have supplied the
gap left by the old Whig party. That such a party would have exercised
a profound nationalizing influence can scarcely be doubted. Events
might have put Douglas at the head of such a party. But, in truth,
such an outcome of the political chaos which then reigned, was a
remote possibility.

The matter of immediate concern to Douglas was the probable attitude
of his allies toward his re-election to the Senate. There was a wide
divergence among Republican leaders; but active politicians like
Greeley and Wilson, who were not above fighting the devil with his own
weapons, counselled their Illinois brethren not to oppose his
return.[676] There was no surer way to disrupt the Democratic party.
In spite of these admonitions, the Republicans of Illinois were bent
upon defeating Douglas. He had been too uncompromising and bitter an
opponent of Trumbull and other "Black Republicans" to win their
confidence by a few months of conflict against Lecomptonism. "I see
his tracks all over our State," wrote the editor of the Chicago