text: For the first time, Illinois Republicans held a convention to agree upon a Senate candidate, and Lincoln won the nomination with little opposition.Lincoln accepted the nomination with great enthusiasm and zeal.After his nomination he delivered his House Divided Speech, with the biblical reference Mark 3:25, "A house divided against itself cannot stand.I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided.It will become all one thing, or all the other." The speech created a stark image of the danger of disunion.The stage was then set for the election of the Illinois legislature which would, in turn, select Lincoln or Douglas.When informed of Lincoln's nomination, Douglas stated, "[Lincoln] is the strong man of the party ...and if I beat him, my victory will be hardly won." The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas.These were the most famous political debates in American history; they had an atmosphere akin to a prizefight and drew crowds in the thousands.The principals stood in stark contrast both physically and politically.Lincoln warned that Douglas' "Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the Founding Fathers' premise that all men are created equal.Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, in which he said local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery within their territory, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists.Lincoln's argument assumed a moral tone, as he claimed Douglas represented a conspiracy to promote slavery.Douglas's argument was more legal in nature, claiming that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S.Supreme Court as exercised in the Dred Scott decision.