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The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) in 1860, the Radical Chapter Thirteen “A David Greater than the Democratic Goliath”: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) In 1860, the radical abolitionist Parker Pillsbury, who called Lincoln “the Kentucky clodhopper,” scoffed at his antislavery record, saying there was “no essential difference” between him and Stephen A. Douglas.1 In fact, the two Illinois rivals disagreed fundamentally about slavery, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the role of the U.S. Supreme Court, racial equality, and American history.2 Their battle served as a dress rehearsal for the presidential race two years later, when once again they clashed, with a different outcome. Herndon predicted that “the Race in Ills for 1858 & 9 -- for the Senatorial seat . will be hot – energetic – deadly; it will be broader – wider, and deeper in principle than the race in 1856.”3 But it would also be marred by Douglas’s brazen appeals to racial 1 Pillsbury to Wendell Phillips, New York, 17 March 1864, Phillips Papers, Harvard University; Pillsbury, speech at Framingham, Massachusetts, 4 July 1860, The Liberator (Boston), 20 July 1860. Some historians have echoed Pillsbury. James G. Randall, Lincoln the President: From Springfield to Gettysburg (2 vols.; New York: Dodd, Mead, 1945), 1:104-28; Morton J. Frisch, “The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and History,” Lincoln Herald 57 (1956): 17-19. 2 The best studies of the debates are Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008); Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959); David Zarefsky, Lincoln, Douglas and Slavery: In the Crucible of Debate (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); Don E. Fehrenbacher, Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850’s (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 96-142; Kenneth M. Stampp, “Race, Slavery, and the Republican Party of the 1850s,” in Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 123-35. 3 Herndon to William Lloyd Garrison, Springfield, 29 May 1858, Garrison Papers, Boston Public Library. 1348 Michael Burlingame – Abraham Lincoln: A Life – Vol. 1, Chapter 13 prejudice, which earned him an unenviable reputation as the “most arrogant demagogue that ever disgraced humanity.”4 * As the Little Giant and his challenger girded for battle, odds makers would have probably favored Douglas, despite some potential handicaps, including the split within his party; the reluctance of some former Whigs to back a Democrat; the growing population of the northern part of the state, where hostility to slavery was intense; and the hard times produced by the Panic of 1857, which were blamed on the Democrats. Outweighing those disadvantages were the Little Giant’s obvious strengths: he was much better known than Lincoln; his leadership in the struggle against the Lecompton Constitution had won respect among Illinoisans who had earlier lost faith in him because of his authorship of the Kansas-Nebraska Act; his forceful personality endeared him to many; his party had long dominated politics in Illinois, a fiercely Negrophobic state where his appeals to race prejudice had great resonance; and his skills as a debater were legendary. In addition, the Illinois General Assembly, which would choose the next senator, was mal-apportioned; the heavily Democratic southern counties of the state had more than their fair share of legislative seats, depriving the Republicans of six to ten votes that they would have had if a reapportionment had been undertaken based on the most recent census. The twenty-five-member State Senate contained Democratic holdovers from districts that by 1858 had Republican majorities. Lincoln acknowledged that Douglas’s eminence benefited the Democrats. “Senator Douglas is of world wide renown,” he observed. “All the anxious politicians of 4 David Davis to his wife Sarah, Clinton, Illinois, 10 October 1860, Davis Family Papers, Lincoln Presidential Library. 1349 Michael Burlingame – Abraham Lincoln: A Life – Vol. 1, Chapter 13 his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as a certainty, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, postoffices, landoffices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargéships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.” Hoping for such patronage rewards, these politicos “rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor.” Lincoln, on the other hand, had no such support: “nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor lean, lank, face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out.”5 Helping to make Douglas formidable in debate was his lack of scruples. As William Herndon told a friend in Massachusetts, Illinois Republicans “have a clever villian to combat. Douglas is an ambitious and an unscrupulous man; he is the greatest liar in all America; he misrepresents Lincoln throughout, and our people generally are not logical enough to see the precise manner, point & issue of [the] deception.”6 In addition, Douglas’s “overplus of words” and “air of assurance” enabled him to impress audiences, even though he might be uttering non sequiturs.7 (A sympathetic analyst of Douglas’s rhetoric noted that the Little Giant was often guilty of employing such logical fallacies as 5 Speech in Springfield, 17 July 1858, Roy P. Basler et al., eds., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols. plus index; New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953-55), 2:506. 6 Herndon to Theodore Parker, Springfield, 24 July 1858, Herndon-Parker Papers, University of Iowa. 7 Horace White, “The Lincoln and Douglas Debates: An Address before the Chicago Historical Society, February 17, 1914” (pamphlet; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1914), 20-21. 1350 Michael Burlingame – Abraham Lincoln: A Life – Vol. 1, Chapter 13 arguing beside the point, making ad hominem attacks, and resorting to ad verecundiam reasoning.)8 Lincoln possessed offsetting advantages: his party was comparatively unified; the appeal of the antislavery cause was waxing; the sincerity of his commitment to that cause was palpable and persuasive; he was an effective, seasoned debater with political skills honed over a quarter of a century; his psychological maturity and paternal qualities predisposed men to regard him with the affection and trust bestowed on a wise father; his self-effacing modesty and keen sense of humor made him likable; and his reputation for integrity had won him an unusual measure of respect. Nevertheless, some Republicans were nervous about the debates. The unpopularity of Lincoln’s stands on the Mexican War and on racial issues, along with the opposition of prominent Eastern Republicans like Horace Greeley, whose New York Tribune was widely read in Illinois, boded ill. Shortly before the debates began, Lincoln asked Hiram W. Beckwith of Danville how the party leaders in his area felt. When told that they anticipated the contest “with deep concern,” Lincoln at first looked pained but quickly changed his expression as he described two men about to fight: “one of them brags about what he means to do. He jumps high in the air, cracking his heels together, smites his fists, and wastes his breath trying to scare somebody.” His opponent “says not a word.” His “arms are at his side, his fists are closely doubled up, his head is drawn to the shoulder, and his teeth are set firm together. He is saving his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off he will win it, or die a-trying.”9 8 Forest L. Whan, “Stephen A. Douglas,” in William Norwood Brigance, ed., A History and Criticism of American Public Address (2 vols.; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1943), 819-20. 9 Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (2 vols.; New York: McClure, 1902), 1:308-9. 1351 Michael Burlingame – Abraham Lincoln: A Life – Vol. 1, Chapter 13 The first debate took place at Ottawa before a crowd of over 10,000, more than doubling the population of that county seat. People flocked there on special trains from LaSalle, Peru, and Chicago (eighty-four miles to the northeast); from less distant locales they poured in on horseback, on foot, on hayracks, and in wagons and carriages. Boats conveyed others along the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which passed through the town. Many arrived the night before the debate, quickly filling the hotels and private houses; latecomers were forced to camp wherever they could find space. The “campfires that spread up and down the valley for a mile made it look as if an army was gathered.”10 Like “some great deliverer, some mighty champion,” Douglas arrived in a splendid carriage drawn by four horses and flanked by bands playing martial music. Adding to the din, cannons fired volleys, well-wishers cheered lustily, and street vendors loudly hawked their wares. Several hundred supporters waved flags and banners.11 Lincoln made a less grandiose entrance into town aboard a train full of supporters from Chicago. Accompanying him was Henry C. Whitney, who recalled that the challenger “sat with me throughout the journey” exhibiting “not the slightest trace of excitement or nervousness.” They talked about matters other than the upcoming debate, and when finally Whitney alluded to that event, Lincoln “calmly and indifferently replied that he was fully prepared.”12 A large crowd holding aloft banners emblazoned with pro-Republican mottos greeted him at the depot: “Abe the Giant-Killer,” “Edgar County for the Tall Sucker,” 10 Recollections of George Beatty, undated manuscript, Ida M.
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