Over 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln and Stephan A. Douglas held seven debates as they campaigned for a Senate seat in Illinois. The debates focused on the issue of slavery and its expansion into the territories. Douglas helped overturn the prohibition on slavery in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska with the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Referred to as popular sovereignty, citizens in Kansas and Nebraska, not the federal government, could determine whether slavery should be allowed to exist in these territories.
