I am glad I made the late race.

It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am gone." [Sidenote] Lincoln to Asbury, November 19, 1858.
To these one other letter may be added, showing his never-failing faith in the political future.

To a personal friend in Quincy, Illinois, who had watched the campaign with unusual attention, Lincoln wrote that same day: "Yours of the 13th was received some days ago.
The fight must go on.

The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats.

Douglas had the ingenuity to be supported in the late contest, both as the best means to break down and to uphold the slave interest.