I believe the decision was improperly made, and I go for reversing it.

Judge Douglas is furious against those who go for reversing a decision.

But he is for legislating it out of all force, while the law itself stands.
I repeat that there has never been so monstrous a doctrine uttered from the mouth of a respectable man.
The announcement and subsequent defense by Douglas of his "Freeport doctrine" proved, as Lincoln had predicted, something more important than a mere campaign incident.

It was the turning-point in Douglas's political fortunes.

With the whole South, and with a few prominent politicians of the North, it served to put him outside the pale of party fellowship.