The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between the two candidates for a Senate seat in the United States by the state of Illinois: former Representative Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, and Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic candidate, who was trying to be re-elected. The debates brought up issues that would be revisited in the US presidential campaign of 1860. The main issue under discussion was slavery, and specifically its expansion into the new American territories.
Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up between Kentucky and Indiana, in what was then the Far West. He became a lawyer in Illinois, leader of the Whig Party and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he remained for eight years. Elected to the House of Representatives of the United States in 1846, Lincoln promoted a rapid modernization of the economy through sectors such as banking, taxes and railroads. As he had originally agreed not to run for a second term in Congress and his opposition to US intervention in Mexico was unpopular with Illinois voters, Lincoln returned to Springfield to resume his career in law. He returned to politics in 1854 and became the leader of the construction of the new Republican Party, which had a large mass of voters in Illinois.
Douglas was known as an ingenious, skilled, tactical, clever, and effective party leader in the debate and passing of laws. He was a great defender of democracy, firmly believed in the principle of popular sovereignty, especially in issues such as slavery and territorial expansion. As president of the Territories Commission, Douglas dominated the Senate in 1850. He was largely responsible for the 1850 slavery agreement, which apparently solved problems arising from slavery. However, in 1854 the question of slavery was reopened with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed slavery in some territories where it was previously forbidden, leaving the election to popular sovereignty. Opposition to this law led to the formation of the Republican Party.
There were seven debates, one in each Illinois state district that had not yet been visited by the candidates. The debates were reproduced in newspapers all over the country, and gave fame to Abraham Lincoln, who would be elected in 1860 as Presidenct of the United States.
In his House Divided Speach, Lincoln warned against the split between slave states in the south and free states in the north. Douglas, in turn, was the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which ended the Missouri Compromise and paved the way for the adoption of slavery in territories north of the 36 ° 30 ' parallel. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Republican candidate argued that the guarantees expressed in the Declaration of Independence by the Founding Fathers were valid also for black people, while Douglas preferred the extension of rights to blacks to be decided by popular sovereignty, being a choice of the population of each state. Lincoln condemned the expansion of the "monstrous injustice of slavery" into the new territories of the United States. For him, slavery should be seen as evil, and prevented from growing.
Douglas accused Lincoln of being an abolitionist and having sought an alliance with former slave Frederick Douglas. In the debates, however, Lincoln did not advocate the immediate end to slavery across the country or absolute racial equality. He said in the debate in Charleston:
"I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone".
Douglas would win Illinois Senate elections, but his stance, especially in light of his pronouncement in Freeport, known as the Freeport Doctrine, split the Democrat electorate in the southern US. Also, widespread media coverage of the debate greatly enhanced Lincoln's national profile, making him a viable candidate for the Republican Party in the next 1860 presidential election.
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