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The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that senators shall be elected by the people of their states, was ratified in 1913, senators were elected by their respective state legislatures, so Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win the votes of the Illinois General Assembly for their respective parties. The debates were designed to generate publicity—some of the first examples of what later would be called media events. For Lincoln, they were an opportunity to raise both his national profile and that of the burgeoning Republican Party, while Douglas sought to defend his record—especially his leading role in promoting the doctrine of popular sovereignty and its incarnation in the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. The candidates spoke in each of Illinois's nine congressional districts. Both candidates had already spoken in Springfield and Chicago within a day of each other, so they decided that their joint appearances would be held in the remaining seven districts. Since Douglas was the incumbent, he had very little to gain from these debates. However, Lincoln, only a one-term congressman, was gaining support by speaking a day after Douglas and thus presenting a rejoinder Douglas could not answer. Furthermore, "The Lincoln newspapers [those papers that formally supported Lincoln] wasted no time in condemning Douglas for not agreeing to the debates and branded him a coward. Political debates were part of the Prairie tradition and any serious political candidate was expected to put on a fine performance." Each debate lasted about three hours; one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, followed by a 90-minute response and a final 30-minute rejoinder by the first candidate. The candidates alternated speaking first. As the incumbent, Douglas spoke first in four of the debates. They were held outdoors, weather permitting, from about 2 to 5 p.m. The fields were full of listeners. The debates focused on slavery, specifically whether it would be allowed in the new states to be formed from the territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican Cession. Douglas, as the Democratic candidate, held that the decision should be made by the residents of the new states themselves rather than by the federal government (popular sovereignty). Lincoln argued against the expansion of slavery, yet stressed that he was not advocating its abolition where it already existed. Never in American history had there been newspaper coverage of such intensity. Both candidates felt they were talking to the whole nation. New technology was readily available: railroads, the telegraph, and Pitman shorthand, at the time called phonography. The state's largest newspapers, from Chicago, sent phonographers (stenographers) to report complete texts of each debate; thanks to the new railroads, the debates were not hard to reach from Chicago. Halfway through each debate, runners were handed the stenographers' notes. They raced for the next train to Chicago, handing them to riding stenographers who during the journey converted the shorthand back into words, producing a transcript ready for the Chicago typesetter and for the telegrapher, who sent it to the rest of the country (east of the Rockies) as soon as it arrived. The next train brought the conclusion. The papers published the speeches in full, sometimes within hours of their delivery. Some newspapers helped their own candidate with minor corrections, reports on the audience's positive reaction, or tendentious headlines ("New and Powerful Argument by Mr. Lincoln–Douglas Tells the Same Old Story"). The newswire of the Associated Press sent messages simultaneously to multiple points, so newspapers all across the country (east of the Rocky Mountains) printed them, and the debates quickly became national events. They were republished as pamphlets. The debates took place between August and October 1858. Newspapers reported 12,000 in attendance at Ottawa, 16,000 to 18,000 in Galesburg, 15,000 in Freeport, 12,000 in Quincy, and at the last one, in Alton, 5,000 to 10,000. The debates near Illinois's borders (Freeport, Quincy, and Alton) drew large numbers of people from neighboring states. A number travelled within Illinois to follow the debates. Douglas was re-elected by the Illinois General Assembly, 54–46. But the publicity made Lincoln a national figure and laid the groundwork for his 1860 presidential campaign. As part of that endeavor, Lincoln edited the texts of all the debates and had them published in a book. It sold well and helped him receive the Republican Party's nomination for president at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago. Background Douglas had first been elected to the United States Senate in 1846, and he was seeking re-election for a third term in 1858. The issue of slavery was raised several times during his tenure in the Senate, particularly with respect to the Compromise of 1850. As chairman of the committee on U.S. territories, he argued for an approach to slavery called popular sovereignty: electorates in the territories would vote whether to adopt or reject slavery. Decisions previously had been made at the federal level concerning slavery in the territories. Douglas was successful with passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History's Mr. Lincoln and Friends Society notes that prominent Bloomington, Illinois resident Jesse W. Fell, a local real estate developer who founded the Bloomington Pantagraph and who befriended Lincoln in 1834, had suggested the debates in 1854. Lincoln had also been elected to Congress in 1846, and he served a two-year term in the House of Representatives. During his time in the House, he disagreed with Douglas and supported the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in any new territory. He returned to politics in the 1850s to oppose the Kansas–Nebraska Act and to help develop the new Republican Party. Before the debates, Lincoln charged that Douglas was encouraging fears of amalgamation of the races, with enough success to drive thousands of people away from the Republican Party. Douglas replied that Lincoln was an abolitionist for saying that the American Declaration of Independence applied to blacks as well as whites. Lincoln argued in his House Divided Speech that Douglas was part of a conspiracy to nationalize slavery. Lincoln said that ending the Missouri Compromise ban on slavery in Kansas and Nebraska was the first step in this nationalizing and that the Dred Scott decision was another step in the direction of spreading slavery into Northern territories. He expressed the fear that any similar Supreme Court decision would turn Illinois into a slave state. Much ha.... Discover the Abraham Lincoln Stephen Douglas Allen C popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Abraham Lincoln Stephen Douglas Allen C books.