Political Debates Between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

From August to October 1858, Lincoln, the Republican candidate, and Douglas, the Democratic incumbent, debated in seven Illinois towns. Douglas held that residents of a territory should decide whether to allow slavery, and he accused Lincoln of wanting racial equality and promoting a house divided.

Lincoln replied that the issue was not whether a territory could vote but whether slavery was right or wrong. He said he did not favor interference with slavery where it existed, but that it should not spread, and that the Declaration's statement that all men are created equal could not be set aside as a mere slogan. His questions at Freeport led Douglas to say that a territory could exclude slavery by refusing to pass the local laws needed to protect it, which damaged him with Southern Democrats.

Douglas won the Senate seat, as the legislature then chose senators, but the debates made Lincoln a national figure.

Why it matters

The texts show the argument over the meaning of the American founding at its sharpest, and conservatives who value the Declaration find in Lincoln's answers a model for reasoning from principle. The debates also contain language about race that readers will find troubling, and which shows the limits of their time.

About the author

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was a self-taught Illinois lawyer who had served one term in Congress. Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861), the Little Giant, was a leading Democrat and author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Lincoln edited his own speeches and the newspaper reports of the debates into a scrapbook, and a book edition came out in 1860, when he was running for president.

Who should read it

Readers of American history and political rhetoric. Pair them with Jaffa's study.