Exploring the Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A Comprehensive Analysis

Introduction

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates are some of the most important events in American political history. They took place during the 1858 state of Illinois Senate race between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. They encapsulate much political debate leading up to the Civil War and have since represented an important episode in the discussion of American history, constitutional principles, and political character. The central issue of the debates was the prevention of the spread of slavery into the territories. Academic criticism of the debates often focuses on Lincoln's arguments and the power of Douglas's rhetoric and oratorical skill. Others investigate the legal reasoning of the debates and understand their significance as a constitutional conversation held nationally. The 1858 senatorial race in Illinois comprised a series of debates. Most of the debates' audiences consisted of partisans already committed to Douglas’s or Lincoln’s Senate candidacy. These debates were scheduled around or just after local and regional fairs. Thus, they particularly caught the attention of the agricultural and small-town merchants that made up most rural communities of the North. The attention of these typically non-political folk was of no small concern to the two candidates, for the debates were a major factor in Douglas’s visibility as a prospective future presidential candidate and, of course, were crucial to Lincoln’s obvious interest.

Historical Context and Significance of the Debates

In the 1850s, tensions over slavery divided the United States. This was the central era of conflict over the peculiar institution, and the new territories provoked much of the discord. Would the unrest in Kansas, the tragedy at Harpers Ferry, and ultimately, the Civil War have occurred if Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas had not overreached in advocating "popular sovereignty"? Or, if Abraham Lincoln had succeeded Douglas in the Senate in 1858? Lincoln answered the rhetorical questions in his time: there was no precedent for the point at which he had designated. Regardless of the "popular sovereignty" head-fake the senator flashed, there would be no slaves in any territories where freedom was the "natural" state. These are just two of the intriguing components of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

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Though six decades have rolled by, the three dozen references cited include articles from 1957 onward. According to some scholars, the apocalyptic air of John Brown's raid above the Mason-Dixon line that same year "accounted for [the] inordinate attention [the debates received]." Other sources consulted by scholars focused on the impact of "anti-Douglas Democracy" editor James Shields and the public first hearing Douglas raise the concept of persuading the Kansas population to "be opposed to slavery" because it was "not profitable" and "it casts degradation upon" poorer men in the North. The doom of whites in the territories from free and slave soil was thought to have produced the indifference—the "squatter vote"—that Brown scorned and that he would use, in effect recruit, and be venerated for employing. It is the fiery character of issues dealt with in the debates, along with the dramatic speeches made by Lincoln and Douglas, that have attached the legend to those seven 1858 gatherings. The essays highlighted here were paired: each was originally published in hard cover in one of the two volumes in the set of Public Opinion in State Politics. The debate proceedings as published in the Chicago Press & Tribune or Illinois State Journal and reprinted in 1965.

Debate Format and Key Topics Discussed

Between August 21 and October 15, 1858, incumbent U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois engaged in a series of seven debates with his Republican challenger, Abraham Lincoln. Although debates among political candidates were common during this period, the seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas were different in two key respects. First, they were unusual in their format. These were not the kind of debates familiar to 21st-century audiences—two-minute answers followed by an ambiguous back-and-forth between the two candidates based on their 10-second rebuttals. Each of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was a single event, comprising one long speech per candidate in which each attempted to make a single sustained argument, followed by a shorter response speech from the other, with the first candidate given an even shorter opportunity for rejoinder.

The format gave Lincoln and Douglas the opportunity to grapple with some of the most controversial political issues of their time. Foremost among these was the future of slavery in the United States and the territories. But the debates also broached related issues, including the moral and legal basis of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the power of territorial legislatures to bar slavery, the merits of popular sovereignty, the Declaration of Independence, states’ rights, the citizenship of free African Americans living in the North, and the role of corrupt slave-holding Democrats in obstructing political debate. The debates were contested, taking place in the midst of crowded rallies with great significance attached to them. The audience was not passive—indeed, public opinion was an essential part of the drama unfolding during the seven debates. Furthermore, the rhetoric of the debates about both slavery and race sought to illuminate the moral-ethical path down which the United States should travel largely by constructing a political model around them. The 1858 U.S. Senate election in Illinois was highly significant because it shaped the nation’s political and moral agenda. Its residual power lasts to this day.

Analysis of Arguments and Rhetorical Strategies

Perhaps the most asked question about the Lincoln-Douglas debates is, "What, exactly, did the men say?" In order to gain a full appreciation of the original source material, it is important to analyze the rhetorical strategies and arguments of Lincoln and Douglas in the seven debates. This section offers a synopsis of the arguments employed by both debaters when talking about slavery. The rhetorical strategies that the debaters used are analyzed next.

Lincoln’s Reasoning. Lincoln’s main opposition to slavery was moral. He asked the audience to use their sense of "natural justice" to decide the issue; slavery was not just. Douglas, on the other hand, saw slavery as something individuals could choose to "take or leave alone," which impinged on no one else’s "rights."

The two debaters made many legal and constitutional arguments throughout the seven debates, with Lincoln articulating on behalf of the slaves and Douglas for popular sovereignty and local self-government. Douglas was the more radical of the two; he was willing to look at his own society with a "civil" as well as "local" aspects. Douglas argued that forcing the free state to adopt the "Negro" was both anti-states’ rights and undermined "local self-government." Lincoln was careful to draw attention to the fact that saving the Union was more important than harming four million innocent individuals. To this extent, "he blurred both the beginning of the Union and the constitutional basis of secession." He even proposed, in his first debate, to accept the abolition of the "Negroes from the South" (while criticizing its anti-Negro feeling). Then, while accepting a duty to the slave at the next debate, Lincoln went as far as to deny that whites and blacks sharing a decent society is the object of the Declaration of Independence.

Impact and Legacy

Lincoln's stance in the debates especially helped to shape the abolition movement. Despite the fact that Lincoln did not win the election that ultimately followed, the debates showcased the up-and-coming politician's moderate stance against the extension of slavery and laid a potential foundation for the complete abolition of slavery beginning in the territories, making an enormous impact on Douglas and the national audience. Known henceforth as the "Rail Splitter," Lincoln's identification as an unlikely defender of free labor and unionists, along with the debates themselves, gained national attention, thus laying a political foundation for his presidency and war policy.

The debates have also been examined in part for the rhetorical and stylistic approaches of Lincoln and Douglas and their contradictory effects on audience and reader perceptions. Interestingly enough, the debates between Lincoln and Douglas were the subject of a classic analytical book on the rhetorical and stylistic techniques and strategies used in them. Some scholars and parts of society argue that the concerns raised during the debates ultimately led to the Civil War and, consequently, it serves as one of the many "flashpoints" of the former—the ideological battle over the validity of slavery and the harm it caused to individuals and society. As the dialogues between Lincoln and Douglas revealed, "their conflict involved the future of democracy, the rights and dignity of man, and, ultimately, the world's most famous challenge to racism and racial apartheid-driven coining of the U.S. Declaration of Independence." This sentiment has been voiced by countless Americans, and consequently, the texts produced by Lincoln and Douglas continue to be read and appreciated in the context of civil rights as well as having a presence in later periods of American history.

The six three-hour-long debates that took place in 1858, in Illinois, Douglas's home state, occurred on opposite sides of a society that opposed slavery. To explain his governing policy used in a way of campaigning that attracted people's attention to the issue of the spread of slavery to the federal territories, but not to the territories themselves. Conversely, Lincoln sought to expose Douglas's ideological inconsistencies compared to his intent to serve his own pride at the expense of social justice. Douglas's talk of the importance of "popular sovereignty" in decision-making on the issue of slavery attracted increased debate on constitutional law as well as the moral means of viewing slavery on behalf of political concerns for national society. Both political leaders' rhetorical strategies reflect the complexities of American public sentiment as well as the conflict waged by the nation's electorate. An anti-slavery party was promoted, but it was overshadowed by current issues. The debates also had wider national implications, and other politicians, including the Democrats in the North and the Republicans in the South, used the debates as acceptance of their candidacy. Douglas was returned to the Senate in 1858, defeating Republicans, including Lincoln, and retired for his final years, dying in 1861. Lincoln continued on to Washington in 1861 before a short presidency that included presiding over the Civil War. The debates between Lincoln and Douglas were to be the two statesmen's only face-to-face interactions, and their public role in history and its legacy far outpaced their initial regional noteworthiness.

Resources

The following resources will be of interest to those who wish to explore the arguments mentioned here in more detail:

• Fehrenbacher, D. E. (1962). The making of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 49(1), 62–90.
• Johannesen, R. L. (1968). The Lincoln-Douglas debates: The pragmatist and the ideologue. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 61(4), 379–400.
• Zarefsky, D. (2007). Public debate and political culture: The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1859 Ohio campaign. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 10(3), 417–444.