The Great Debates: How Lincoln Won a Darren Penuliar St. Pius X - St. Matthias Academy February 26, 2018 The sequence of debates between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen Douglas that occurred during the state election campaign of Illinois are widely revered as among the most pivotal and compelling affairs of U.S political history. Taking place in 7 locations throughout Illinois, these debates were highly publicized discussions, as Lincoln and Douglas presented their arguments with the ultimate goal of acquiring a seat in the senate of Illinois. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates largely concerned the issue of slavery’s extension into the territories. Although that controversy had seemingly been settled by the Missouri …show more content…
However, despite the general public considering Lincoln’s performance in the debates an interim defeat, they ultimately acted to spark him to the position of political power we know today. The Democrats won 40 seats in the Illinois State house to the Republicans’ 35. seats. Douglas was reelected by the Legislature 54-46. However Douglas’s victory was ultimately hollow. The Democrats of the south were no longer in support or advocacy, and his chairmanship within the Committee on Territories was eventually revoked. Douglas’s concept of popular sovereignty, although engrossing and appealing, was conclusively temporary. By the time of the debates, the northern and southern states had become substantially different from one another other. The southern way of life was overwhelmingly based on a slave-labor economy while northern states were composed of small farmers, an emerging class of entrepreneurs, new businesses, and a growing industrial base. When Lincoln and Douglas conducted their popular debates, the harsh division between the nation made it seem unlikely their differences could be ever come to resolution. Nevertheless, the debates opened the eyes of American citizens toward the unscrupulous nature of slavery, and the …show more content…
Many of the debate’s followers and supporters considered it an immensely personal victory for Douglas, because he had not only defeated Lincoln, but also challenged a sitting president from his own party. Lincoln, on the other hand, saw the deepening divisions among Democrats as a good sign for Republicans. "The question is not half-settled," he assured friends after the contest. He had, more importantly, not only dealt with the slavery question effectively but had “lifted the discussion far above that narrow issue when he attacked the morality of the slave system.”[34] He had laid out what the purpose was of a true democracy. Prior to the debates, Lincoln as not very well-known throughout the nation, but after the election, his name and reputation had gained national recognition. Two years later, he was the Republican Party’s nominee for President, but had it not been for the debates “no amount of political wire-pulling could have brought about his selection.” The seven contests between the Illinois senatorial candidates in 1858 set the stage for the increasing tension that led to the Civil