by Charles Ray

Created on: December 02, 2011   Last Updated: April 29, 2012

In 1859, Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the Senate from Illinois, and the incumbent Stephen Douglas of the Democratic Party participated in a series of seven debates. The central theme of all seven debates was slavery. The debates drew large audiences because at the time, slavery was an issue of importance to citizens across the entire nation because of the combined impacts of the Missouri Compromise, which established a limit on the extension of slavery in new territories that were about to become states, and the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court that upheld the property rights of slave-holders.

Contrary to the view held by many historians that Douglas, The Little Giant, readily accepted Lincoln’s challenge to debate, Douglas was reluctant to agree to the proposal because it might have meant participating in as many as fifty sessions, an exhausting task even for an orator of Douglas’s skill. Lincoln’s challenge however, placed him in a difficult position; he could not refuse outright. Despite his reputation as a debater, even though he often won the debates, he lost the campaign, and he was reluctant to go through the entire campaign following in Lincoln’s shadow.

Media commentary on the seven debates reflected the partisanship of newspapers of the era, with much comment on how the candidates looked or spoke, and little on what they actually said. Republican papers panned Douglas, while papers supporting the Democrats took potshots at Lincoln. In many ways, coverage of the Lincoln-Douglas debates foreshadowed the partisan media coverage of modern day political campaigns.

While the debates covered a number of topics, the most contentious one was the issue of slavery. Douglas supported the Dred Scott decision which decreed that slaves were property, and used the argument that Lincoln was an abolitionist who wanted to abolish slavery which would result in free blacks moving to Illinois and taking jobs from whites. Lincoln, on the other hand, argued that while he opposed the extension of slavery into the new territories, it was not his aim to push for social and political equality for blacks. He argued that Douglas, in his argument supporting the Supreme Court’s controversial decision, was opposing popular sovereignty which would allow the residents of each territory to decide for themselves.

Douglas countered with the argument that people in a new territory should be allowed to decide on the issue of slavery for themselves, which pleased neither side of the issue in his party. Pro-slavery Democrats feared it because it allowed for the abolition of slavery, while the anti-slavery elements of the party feared it because it would allow an extension of slavery.

Lincoln lost to Douglas; the legislature elected Senators, but in his defeat were the seeds of his ultimate victory two years later when he ran for President. The national attention to him from the debates made him the Republican front runner in the presidential election, and he was able to use Douglas’s positions in the debates to further divide the Democratic Party.

Many historical analyses of the debates criticize Lincoln for his defeat, but such views are short-sighted in that they fail to look at the bigger picture. A persistent person, Lincoln proved time and time again during the thirty years before he became president that he had an amazing ability to come back from apparent failure and defeat. In many ways, his loss to Douglas in the debates was a masterful piece of strategy, proving that losing a battle doesn’t always determine the outcome of the war.

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