The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

The prospective reader should be cautioned, however, not to raise his expectations too high. Despite the important place they hold in American political history, these clashes are not of uniformly high forensic quality. A large amount of time was taken up with incrimination and recrimination. Each candidate charged the other with being party to a “conspiracy.” Lincoln claimed that Douglas had entered into a conspiracy to make the institution of slavery national, by inserting a provision in the “Nebraska Bill” which would remove the restriction imposed by the Missouri Compromise and eventually make it unconstitutional for any state to prohibit slavery. Douglas claimed that Lincoln had entered into a conspiracy with certain leaders to dissolve the old Party and the Democratic Party by “abolitionizing” them, in return for which he was to get a seat in the Senate. These charges were aired and parried at nearly every meeting.

There is no doubt, however, about the real issue, which was what to do about slavery. And though he won the election, there is no doubt that Douglas got the worst of the argument. In the final debate he was reduced to the demagoguery of attacking Lincoln’s record in Congress on the Mexican War ten years earlier. In intellect Douglas was not even a little giant. Lincoln, on the other hand, was a master of argument, and his method was one that Douglas was peculiarly unfitted to cope with.

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Richard M. Weaver

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Declaration of Independence

The prospective reader should be cautioned, however, not to raise his expectations too high. Despite the important place they hold in American political history, these clashes are not of uniformly high forensic quality. A large amount of time was taken up with incrimination and recrimination. Each candidate charged the other with being party to a “conspiracy.” Lincoln claimed that Douglas had entered into a conspiracy to make the institution of slavery national, by inserting a provision in the “Nebraska Bill” which would remove the restriction imposed by the Missouri Compromise and eventually make it unconstitutional for any state to prohibit slavery. Douglas claimed that Lincoln had entered into a conspiracy with certain leaders to dissolve the old Party and the Democratic Party by “abolitionizing” them, in return for which he was to get a seat in the Senate. These charges were aired and parried at nearly every meeting.

There is no doubt, however, about the real issue, which was what to do about slavery. And though he won the election, there is no doubt that Douglas got the worst of the argument. In the final debate he was reduced to the demagoguery of attacking Lincoln’s record in Congress on the Mexican War ten years earlier. In intellect Douglas was not even a little giant. Lincoln, on the other hand, was a master of argument, and his method was one that Douglas was peculiarly unfitted to cope with.