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How Did Stephen Douglass Win The Election Of 1860

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In 1858 Stephen Douglas a spokesman for the Democratic Party, was seeking reelection to a third term in the U.S. Senate, and Abraham Lincoln was running for Douglas’s Senate seat as a Republican. Douglas and Lincoln traveled across the state of Illinois in a series of debates hitting seven of the nine Congressional Districts. Douglas and Lincoln each took turns discussing party politics, the future of the nation, and the most important topic slavery. Who won the debates, is the question that is still being asked in the year 2016. Through my own personal study and review of The Lincolns Douglas Debates, it is my personal opinion that Stephen Douglas not Abraham Lincoln won the debates because of how the election system was set up in 1858, by …show more content…

At Freeport, Illinois, on August 27, 1858, in the second of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Douglas stated that “slavery” could legally be barred from the territories if the territorial legislatures simply refused to enact the type of police regulations necessary to make slavery work. Without a legal framework and enforcement officials, slavery would be excluded” (Freeport Doctrine n.d.). This statement, though not too popular with the South, was listed as one of the reason that Douglas was able to retain his current seat in the U.S. …show more content…

Senate, however there are those who believe that it was actually Lincoln who won the debates, because even though Lincoln failed to win a Senate seat, his battle with Douglas had placed him into the national spotlight, and made him a serious presidential candidate for the US Presidency in 1861. More support for those who believe Lincoln won the debates was when Lincoln did go on to win the Presidential Election and become the 16th President of the United State. It is noted regarding the debates with Douglas that Lincoln himself said “his defeat was a slip and not a fall" (Digital History ID 3284,

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