the Lincoln-Douglas debates propelled Lincoln's political career into the national spotlight, while simultaneously stifling Douglas' career, and foreshadowing the 1860 Election. By 1858, Stephen A. Douglas was the most prominent politician in the West. Lincoln-Douglas debates, series of seven debates between the Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, largely concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories. The result of the debates was inconclusive. Senators were then chosen by state legislatures, and in the 1858 legislative election, Illinois Republican candidates slightly outpolled their Democratic rivals. Southerners believed that Abraham Lincoln was an abolitionist and also felt betrayed by Stephen Douglas's suggestion that territories could refuse to grant slavery legal protection. In 1860, Lincoln won the Republican Party's presidential nomination.In that election, he faced Douglas (again), who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell.
