Pros And Cons Of The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

The Infamous Lincoln-Douglas Disputations The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 hold great significance in America's political history. These seven debates for Senate drew tens of thousands of attendees to several cities around Illinois. Its main arguments brought forth slavery's complex division in America as well as the separation of the union because of it. Although Lincoln did not win the election, these debates proved to be the platform for Lincoln's principles and helped his rise towards presidency.

Unlike many other historian’s accounts of the Lincoln and Douglas debates Allen C. Guelzo analyzes the debates by placing them into a balanced perspective, in The Debates That Defined America. For one reason, Guelzo was not bias in portrayal of either Lincoln or Douglas, their campaigns, or the political state of Illinois. Most importantly it was Guelzo’s attention to the entire state of Illinois. Along with its political happenings surrounding the time of the senatorial election and debates. Debates, as argued by Allen C. Guelzo, that would prove to be more influential in shaping american politics than deciding Illinois Senatorial Election of 1858.

As stated by Northern Illinois University, “In that act Illinois' Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas had attempted to organize the vast Nebraska territory for settlement and the passage of a transcontinental railroad”.(Monroe, R.D.) Unfortunately, Nebraska lands belonged to Indians, and was identified as a desert. Knowing the situation, Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, Northern Illinois University said, “Douglas framed the bill with the idea that the people of Nebraska and Kansas should decide for themselves whether they wished to permit slavery, a doctrine he called "popular sovereignty. "”(Monroe, R.D.) Douglas wanted to expand the north, but it created many issues for the Northern and Southern states.

In 1858 Stephen Douglas a spokesman for the Democratic Party, was seeking reelection to a third term in the U.S. Senate, and Abraham Lincoln was running for Douglas’s Senate seat as a Republican. Douglas and Lincoln traveled across the state of Illinois in a series of debates hitting seven of the nine Congressional Districts. Douglas and Lincoln each took turns discussing party politics, the future of the nation, and the most important topic slavery. Who won the debates, is the question that is still being asked in the year 2016. Through my own personal study and review of The Lincolns Douglas Debates, it is my personal opinion that Stephen Douglas not Abraham Lincoln won the debates because of how the election system was set up in 1858, by

The Lincoln and Douglas Debates in 1858 were a series of important joint discussions that would determine the future of slavery in America. The Lincoln/Douglas Debates were also known as the Great Debates of 1858. Before the debates, Douglas had unusually defied President James Buchanan and the southern democratic leaders about admitting Kansas as a slave state under the Lecompton constitution. Those from the North that were against slavery, later known as Republicans, found interest in having Douglas reelected as a U.S. Senate. Lincoln and his allies had known Douglas for a long time and did not trust him.

The so-called "battle of the union" continued in Illinois. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas wanted to take their arguments straight to the people of the United States, and so they did. It would be better because the people get to decided what they want for there own country. Lincoln and Douglas both received help from different parties in the congress. There were some people who supported Lincoln but opposed Douglas.

Southerners—Democrats and Whigs alike—jumped at the opportunity to open Northern territories to slavery, but Northerners recoiled, outraged that the Missouri Compromise had been violated. Riots and protests against the Kansas-Nebraska Act erupted in Northern cities. What Douglas had failed to realize was that most Northerners regarded the Missouri Compromise to be almost sacred. The publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the brutal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act had by this time awakened hundreds of thousands in the North to the horrors of slavery.

Stephen Douglas, an advocate of popular sovereignty, and Abraham Lincoln, a Republican candidate, were both running to represent Illinois in the United States Senate. These two men met in a sequence of seven debates before they battled for office of presidency in the election of 1858. Slavery eventually became the main issue discussed repeatedly in each of the debates, due to the Mexican War adding new territories left to be assessed as free soil or not. During this time, the Compromise of 1850 was a temporary fix to the sectional issues for the states that made the decision to participate in the extension of slavery. However, the Missouri Compromise of 1854 brought the issue back up again.

The 1858 Illinois senate race between Whig candidate Abraham Lincoln and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas emphasized the opposing views dividing the Northern and Southern states regarding the expansion of slavery and the rights laid out by the founding fathers. Lincoln did not believe that slavery should be allowed to spread outside of the slave states that were already in place. He argued that the founding fathers had already set slavery on a path to extinction by prohibiting the extension of slavery into new territory where it had not existed and wanted a return to that ideology. Douglas, however, was a firm believer in local self-governance, removed from interference from Congress. He thought that local governments should decide the slavery issue for themselves, as they had done since the nation’s founding.

On the contrary, Lincoln truly believed that the Continental Congress “intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects.” Although this statement seems contradictory, he goes on to explain that “they meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.” He intends to demonstrate the idea of the Preamble as a theory that will only become law when the time is right according to society. In essence, Douglas held many accusations against Lincoln over three main concerns: the controversy over slavery, Lincoln’s remarks against the Supreme Court, and both men’s interpretation of the Preamble of the Constitution. Although Douglas tried to incriminate Lincoln by exploiting extracts from his Springfield speech, Lincoln rebutted by explaining the intent of his

Stephan A. Douglas was for the Democratic Party and was also the designer of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He urged the point that people should be able to choose if a territory is a slave state or a free state, as well as pointing out much evidence in the Constitution that suggested that the Founding Fathers were not against the concept of slavery as many of them owned slaves. However, Lincoln took the moral route and stated that this was a war between right and wrong and Douglas was advocating for the wrong side. Because of this, the public was divided on who to vote

Abraham Lincoln, Frederic Douglass, were one of the most appealing well-known speakers, people who did believe that slavery was morally wrong and devote their lives to fight for freedom. However, there are several differences between the view of the Constitution’s position differences between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Kansas-Nebraska Act indicated that the recognition of slavery should be determined by the decision of these residents (popular or squatter sovereignty). This act itself conflicted heavily with the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, which was essentially seen as the admittance of slavery anywhere in the country. This act made a political issue of confrontation between North and South.

It would be highly unpredicted that by the end of September 26, 1960, an unknown senator from Massachusetts would become a star. The young, Catholic senator was John F. Kennedy. It is now common knowledge that without the nation’s first televised debate that Kennedy would have never became president. But beyond securing his presidential career, the 60-minute duel between the notable Senator and Vice President Richard Nixon fundamentally altered political campaigns, television media, along with America’s political history. “it’s one of those unusual points on the timeline of history where you can say things changed very dramatically- in this case, in a single night,” stated by Alan Schroeder, media historian and associate professor at Northeastern

In this election, Lincoln and Douglas had some series of debates over slavery. Although Lincoln never exactly stated that he wanted to abolish slavery, much of the South believed he was an Abolitionist. At his speech in 1858 in Springfield Illinois, Lincoln wanted the nation to be one thing or another, meaning all free or all slave, because it couldn’t keep going on how it was, else it would fall apart. In his speech, Lincoln said, “...but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other” (Doc G).

President Abraham Lincoln, in his inaugural address, addresses the topic of the civil war and its effects on the nation and argues that America could be unified once more. He supports his claim by using massive amounts of parallel structure and strong word choice. Lincoln ‘s purpose is to contemplate the effects of the civil war in order to unite the broken America once again. He adopts a very hopeful tone for his audience, the readers of the inaugural address and others interested in the topic of American history and the civil war.