, he said that stephen a. douglas and i both arrived in illinois roughly at the same time, and we both started off as hardscrabble boys ambitious to get ahead, and i am--in the race of success, i am a failure, a flat failure. >> narrator: when his term was up, he returned to springfield disappointed and concentrated on his legal career. >> he was just content to be done with politics and that he would focus, basically, the rest of his life building his law practice and making money that way. >> billy. >> ah, mr. lincoln. >> good news: the firm will stay solvent for a while. >> narrator: lincoln was the only traveling lawyer to stay out on the circuit from beginning to end. even on sundays, when most journeyed home to see their families, lincoln did not. >> and this incorporates the changes we talked about. >> yes, it does, huh? >> good. >> narrator: it caused some to wonder. judge davis said mary was to blame. >> mary supposedly, according to all the evidence, had an uncontrollable temper. >> she made life very unplea

relationship between -- >> stephen douglas and henry clay. >> and -- >> henry clay. >> stephen douglas by the way, in case i didn't mention it, is the man who then took over after clay left washington to go bathing up in rhode island. that relationship was perfectly -- it wasn't close. douglas disagreed with the omnibus solution, and said so, and walked away from it. but as soon as the omnibus went down to defeat, he jumps up and takes control and gets all of those bills passed. so he deserves a great deal of credit for the compromise of 1850. and as such, he became a leading presidential candidate. and in 1860, he ran against abraham lincoln and lost. thank god. sir. >> a couple of quick questions. given the clays -- given the clays perspective on slavery, what was his relationship of the abolitionists in congress? and the second question i just quickly, i didn't quite understand how slavery in the district of columbia became part of one of those resolutions. i was under the impression that issue is not settled until just prior to the emancipation proclamation. the issue came up again