Bordewich, “How Lincoln Bested Douglas in Their Famous Debates.” Smithsonian, September 2008.Įric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (W.W.President Hatcher, Governor Romney, Senators McNamara and Hart, Congressmen Meader and Staebler, and other members of the fine Michigan delegation, members of the graduating class, my fellow Americans: READ MORE: Check out our Abraham Lincoln content hub, with more than three dozen stories about the 16th president. Exhausted by the campaign, as well as his efforts to rally northern Democrats to the Union cause as the Civil War began, Douglas died in June 1861, at the age of 48. Douglas succeeded in winning the Democratic nomination in 1860, but with Southern Democrats backing John Breckenridge, he won only one state: Missouri. Meanwhile, Douglas’ Democratic Party continued to split over the issue of slavery’s extension. Over the next two years, he would hone his arguments on the morality of slavery in speeches around the country, emerging as the dark horse Republican nominee in the 1860 presidential election. Lincoln responded that he had “no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the Black races” and that “a physical difference between the two” would likely prevent them from ever living in “perfect equality.” Though he believed slavery was morally wrong, Lincoln made it clear that he shared the belief in white supremacy held by Douglas and nearly all-white Americans at the time.īut while Douglas held that the nation’s founding document had been written by white men, who intended it to apply only to white men, Lincoln argued that “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.” Though he assured Southerners he did not plan to interfere with slavery where it already existed, he argued that the Founding Fathers-many of whom enslaved people-had regarded the institution of slavery as a moral evil that must eventually disappear.ĭespite his loss, Lincoln’s commanding performance in the debates with Douglas, and his eloquent and bold statement of the Republican Party’s position on slavery, established him as a figure of national importance. Thanks to the many reporters and stenographers who attended, and new technologies such as the telegraph and the railroad, the candidates’ arguments drew national attention, and would fundamentally alter the national debate over slavery and the rights of Black Americans.ĭouglas repeatedly attacked Lincoln’s supposed radical views on race, claiming his opponent would not only grant citizenship rights to freed slaves but allow Black men to marry white women (an idea that horrified many white Americans) and that his views would put the nation on an inevitable path to war. Despite their length and often tedious format, the debates became a huge spectacle, attracting crowds of up to 20,000 people. While Lincoln traveled by railroad, carriage or boat, Douglas rode in a private train fitted with a cannon that fired a shot every time he arrived in a new location.Įach debate followed the same structure: an hour-long opening statement by one candidate, an hour and a half-long response by the other candidate and a half-hour rebuttal by the first candidate. In all, they traveled over 4,000 miles during the Senate campaign. Lincoln and Douglas met in seven debates between August and October 1858, located in different congressional districts around the state. He kicked off his campaign in earnest with a speech in Springfield that June, in which he famously declared that "A house divided against itself cannot stand.this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” Seven Debates, Seven Congressional Districts WATCH: Abraham Lincoln's 'House Divided Speech'īy 1858, Lincoln was the most prominent leader in the new Republican Party in Illinois, and the clear choice to run against Douglas.
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