The First Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Pam Venable
Booth Elementary School, Enfield

August 21, 1858, was the day that Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas met in Ottawa, Illinois, in the first of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Ottawa is a town in north-central Illinois. Lincoln and Douglas arrived in Ottawa along with some six thousand spectators, doubling the city population. The audience stood outside in scorching heat for three full hours to hear the debate.

Stephen A. Douglas had been a U.S. senator from Illinois since 1847. He was well known in the nation because of controversial legislation he had introduced—the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This act permitted incoming states to determine whether they wanted to permit or prohibit slavery. Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, disagreed with Douglas's proposal, and this inspired him to challenge Douglas for the Senate seat in 1858. Lincoln opposed extension of slavery in the West.

During the senatorial campaign, both men were giving speeches around the state when Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of debates. Eventually Douglas and Lincoln met that fall in seven long debates. On the day of the first debate they had agreed that Douglas would talk for one hour. Then Lincoln would talk for an hour and a half, and Douglas would finish with a half-hour rebuttal.

The debates centered on the issue of slavery and whether African Americans should have the same rights as white people. Even though Douglas was against slavery, he thought that individual states should be able to choose whether to allow slavery or not. His position won Douglas still another term in the Senate, but two years later he lost the presidential race of 1860 to Lincoln.

During the debate in Ottawa, Lincoln developed every relevant argument he could, but despite his efforts, he lost the first debate. One newspaper reporter from the Philadelphia Press talked about Lincoln specifically: "Poor fellow! he was writhing in the powerful grasp of an intellectual giant." Douglas's nickname was Little Giant because he was a very short man, but he was a persuasive and powerful speaker.—[From Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln; Frank L. Dennis, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates.]

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