It was more important for Mr.Douglas to hold Illinois for himself than to give the control of Kansas to the South.
Indeed, his Northern friends had been for some time persuaded that his only escape from the dangerous embarrassments surrounding him was in the admission of Kansas as a free State.

If the Missouri Compromise had not been repealed, a free State was assured.

If Kansas should become a slave State in consequence of that repeal, it would, in the excited condition of the popular mind, crush Douglas in the North, and bring his political career to a discreditable end.
Mr.Douglas had come, therefore, to the parting of the ways.

He realized that he was rushing on political destruction, and that, if he supported the vulgar swindle perpetrated at Lecompton, he would be repudiated by the great State which had exalted him and almost idolized him as a political leader.

He determined, therefore, to take a bold stand against the administration on this issue.