Stephen Douglas Paper

The Little Giant’s Largest Error?
Stephen A. Douglas and Popular Sovereignty
Bob Kett
December 15, 2016
HIST 420G

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In the political climate of the 1850s, few places in the United States illustrated the
political divide that would lead to civil war better than the state of Illinois. Few voices were more
forceful and passionate in the political realm in that decade than that of Illinois Senator Stephen
Arnold Douglas. Douglas’ attempts at staving off the almost inevitable climate of civil war were
among the most divisive in the country. To those who admired Douglas, he was a hero, a
moderating influence over extremist southern and northern voices, a successor to that great
compromiser, Henry Clay. To those who detested the diminutive Democrat, Douglas was a great
antagonist hell-bent on destroying the fragile peace that was quickly giving way to conflict. In
part due to his steadfast advocating for popular sovereignty, Douglas ultimately became little
more than an historical footnote, the man who may have beaten Abraham Lincoln to retain his
Senate seat in 1858— in no small part due to gerrymandering—but who would lose the White
House to Lincoln two years later with armed conflict looming. Utilizing primary sources from
the period as well as secondary sources from decades after, this paper will look at how Stephen
Douglas’ positions both helped and hindered his political career and how the conflict over
slavery and how Douglas’ steadfast support of affected the political careers of Douglas himself,
James Shields, Douglas’ ally in the Senate for six years, Lyman Trumbull, Shields’ successor
who would split from the Democratic Party over Douglas’ views, and Abraham Lincoln, the one-
term Whig Congressman who, like Trumbull, returned to the political realm owing to his disgust
with Douglas’ views.
Stephen Douglas entered the august body of the United States Senate in March 1847
shortly before his thirty-fourth birthday. It was the culmination of a political career that seemed
destined for the history books. Aged twenty-one, he had been chosen State’s Attorney for rural
Morgan County, followed by stints serving in the state House, as Registrar of the Federal Land

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Office at Springfield and as Illinois’ Secretary of State. At twenty-seven, Douglas was elected
the youngest Supreme Court justice in the history of Illinois. Two years after, he was elected to
the House of Representatives representing Illinois’ downstate Fifth Congressional District.1
In
December 1846, Douglas was unanimously nominated by the Democratic caucus of the Illinois
state legislature for the state’s open United States Senate seat. With a lopsided vote of one
hundred to forty-five when the full legislature met, Douglas was easily elected.2
Douglas’ first Senate term came at a time when the fragile Union was starting to come
undone. The 1820 Missouri Compromise had temporarily quieted any talk of rebellion and for
three decades thereafter, a slave state was admitted to the Union at roughly the same time as a
free state so as to not disrupt the balance of power in the nation. Maine entered as a free state in
1820 followed by Missouri in 1821. Arkansas, admitted in 1836, was followed by Michigan the
following year. In 1845, both Florida and Texas were admitted, balanced by Iowa in 1846 and
Wisconsin in 1848. The Missouri Compromise was a temporary solution at best and as the new
decade dawned, a new compromise was necessary to stave off civil war.
Douglas was fortunate to have James Shields as the man serving alongside him from
1849 on. J. Sean Callan’s Courage or Country summarized how the two came to serve alongside
one another. A hero of the Mexican-American War, the Irish-born Shields had returned to
Illinois in 1848 to challenge incumbent Senator Sidney Breese for the Democratic nomination to
the Senate. Though offered the governorship of the Oregon Territory, Shields instead used his
influential connections to garner support for the Senate seat and with the support of Shields and
Breese almost even by the time James Polk offered him the governorship of the territory, Shields
elected to fight for the more prominent position in Washington. When the Democratic caucus
met in January 1849, Shields emerged the victor on the second ballot with a vote of thirty-five to

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twenty-four; given the Democratic nomination and subsequently elected by an overwhelming
margin, garnering seventy votes to his Whig opponent’s twenty-six.3
Though the results of the
election were soon overturned owing to Shields not having been an American citizen for the
requisite period of time, he would be re-elected to the seat in a rematch against Breese in October
1849.4
Although they had previously had their differences, the two Democratic Senators
generally worked well together. Shields was no abolitionist though he did view slavery as evil, a
violation of natural rights; he opposed federal intervention to stop it, believing it to be improper.5
This was right in line with Douglas’ views; like most Jacksonians, Douglas believed that people
spoke through the will of the majority while simultaneously insisting on observing the rights of
the minority. As he would later put forward in an article in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, “every
distinct political Community, loyal to the Constitution and the Union, is entitled to all the rights,
privileges, and immunities of self-government in respect to their local concerns and internal
polity, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.”6
Douglas viewed his positions as
most Jacksonians of the day did, as principled and pragmatic.7
Unlike Shields, Douglas had a
direct link to slavery, his wife having inherited one hundred fifty slaves that had belonged to her
father upon his death. In a letter to the Quincy Whig in 1850, Douglas stressed that he had been
offered the slaves and had refused to accept them, furthermore stressing his desire to emancipate
the slaves as soon as possible.8
By the fall of 1849, sectional hostility threatened the nation much in the way that it had
prior to the passing of the Missouri Compromise. Many in the South conceded that the question
of whether or not slavery would exist in California or New Mexico was an abstraction. At the
same time, they were cognizant of the fact that the exclusion of slavery from those areas would

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help to bring disaster before long. With new states carved out of the Mexican cession as well as
the Oregon and Minnesota territories all to be admitted to the Union as free states, the careful
balance between slave and free would no longer exist, the North no longer hesitant to attack that
peculiar institution that was crucial to the southern way of life. The abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia and of the domestic slave trade were almost certain to follow. With
southern Whigs joining forces with southern Democrats, venerable South Carolina Senator John
Calhoun was confident that “the North must give away, or there will be a rupture.”9
Free-soilers in the North were not going to give up without a fight, however, especially
with their cause bolstered by northern Whigs. If anything, the threats from the South regarding
disunion strengthened their determination to fight for their beliefs. The most precarious place for
a Northern politician in this period to be was in the middle. Moderates were incredibly anxious
viewing the radical factions from both halves of the Union threatening to upset the balance of
power, moderates viewing some in the North as anxious for disunion as southerners and southern
threats as designed to drive off any northerners seeking compromise. It was increasingly the
belief of many that the thirty-first Congress might well decide the question of whether the Union
should continue to exist.10
In the midst of this great divide, many voices would emerge with
proposals to find a new compromise. Among the loudest voices offering a solution was that of
Stephen Douglas.
Douglas’ proposal for compromise contained five parts. First, California would be
admitted as a free state in accordance with its wishes, its eastern boundary set at the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. Second and third, the provisional government of Deseret and the government
established by the people of New Mexico would both be recognized as territorial governments,
their boundaries consisting of the entire Great Basin area and the great majority of the land east

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of the Rio Grande claimed by Texas respectively, Texas compensated for the loss of their loss of
territory to New Mexico. Fourth, a new slave state was to be carved out of Texas to balance the
admittance of California in order to maintain the balance between slave and free states. Finally,
territorial officials were to be appointed for the new territories of Deseret and New Mexico in the
same manner as provided for in all other territories. The one aspect of the proposal that Douglas
was concerned with the most was the question of territories. In recognizing those preexisting
governments in Deseret and New Mexico, Douglas further confirmed his belief in popular
sovereignty, that those in the territories should be allowed to determine their own domestic
institutions free of dictation from Congress. He had previously confirmed this belief in the case
of Oregon, where prohibition of slavery was recognized in its territorial act.11
Unfortunately for Douglas, his plan excited little interest. In its stead was a compromise
offered up by esteemed Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, eight resolutions equally balanced
between the two sections. California was to be admitted as a free state, territorial governments
were to be established for the remaining portion of the Mexican cession “without the adoption of
any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery”, the western boundary of Texas was to be
reduced while the former nation’s debts were to be paid by the United States, the slave trade in
Washington, D. C. would be prohibited with the understanding that abolishing slavery outright in
the District was unwise, a new fugitive slave law would be passed and Congress would have no
power to prohibit or obstruct the domestic slave trade. There were an equal number of
concessions for states both slave and free and, in Clay’s mind, should be acceptable for both
sides.12
Debate over Clay’s compromise began in early February 1850. From the outset, the
debate would rage. John Calhoun argued against the provision calling for prohibition in those

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territories won in the Mexican cession and called on the North to cease the agitation that came
with the slavery question, New York’s William H. Seward rejected the compromise outright with
its concessions to the south. For Douglas’ part, he tried his hardest to place the blame on both
North and South.13
The omnibus bill that combined all of Clay’s proposals was defeated in July
1850. With the Kentuckian’s health too precarious for him to continue leading the fight for
compromise, Douglas took the reins of power from Clay, rewriting the bills and doing his best to
guide them to passage. Believing Clay’s name to have been the reason the bills had not passed,
Douglas took control of the body, largely letting others debate while he managed the floor. The
individual components that had constituted the omnibus bill were broken up and voted on
individually. In two weeks’ time, the Senate voted to admit California, to quiet the Texas
boundary dispute, and to give New Mexico territorial government. Shortly thereafter came
passage of bills to abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia and a stronger Fugitive
Slave law.14
The success of the Compromise of 1850 increased the profile of Stephen Douglas. For
Douglas, the early 1850s were the most satisfying of his life. Less than ten years after his arrival
in Washington, he was a national figure with influence and power, asserting himself as a leader
in his political party. Aggressive and brash, his assumption of the position of spokesman for the
West and Western interests helped Douglas to find his place at the forefront of American
political life.15
With the 1852 Presidential election imminent, Douglas began preparing for a
potential candidacy a full fourteen months prior to the election. Captivating his audiences
throughout the nation, the 37-year-old filled the need for a young leader devoted to the Union,
two traits that a Democratic candidate needed to have if the party had any chance at the White
House. However, overzealous supporters and an entry deemed far too early by most party

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insiders ultimately hindered Douglas’ chance at the nomination in 1852.16
Dark horse Franklin
Pierce would win both the Democratic nomination and the Presidency. Pierce’s 15,000-vote
majority in Illinois helped the entire Democratic slate, resulting in overwhelming Democratic
majorities in both houses of the state assembly who would cast their votes for Senator in January
1853. Re-nominated by the Democratic caucus on January 4, Douglas was reelected to the
Senate the following day.17
No single action would define Stephen Douglas’ career in the Senate than his
championing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. As Lewis Lehrman describes in Lincoln at Peoria,
Douglas’ power had peaked during his time guiding the Compromise of 1850 into law. As 1854
dawned, Douglas had to find a way to clear the roadblocks to his territorial legislation. The year
before, a bill to organize the “Nebraska” territory encompassing both Kansas and Nebraska had
failed. Douglas saw the organization of the territory as a way to boost his prospects for the
Democratic nomination in 1856 and to bring economic opportunities for his Illinois constituents.
As he had done in 1850, he called for popular sovereignty in the territory, believing it to be the
best way to take the issue of slavery out of Washington politics once and for all. Organization of
the territory would also help Douglas to forestall a plan devised by Southerners for a
transcontinental railroad through the South, Douglas’ strategy assuring a transcontinental line
from Chicago to San Francisco, better for Douglas’ own financial interests.18
In a speech before
the Senate on January 30, 1854, Douglas put forward his belief of what the Kansas-Nebraska bill
could achieve:
“The legal effect of this bill, if it be passed as reported by the Committee on Territories,
is neither to legislate slavery into these territories nor out of them, but to leave the people
to do as they please, under the provisions and subject to the limitations of the
Constitution of the United States. Why should not this principle prevail? Why should any
man, north or south, object to it?”19

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Douglas certainly erred in his judgement that the Kansas-Nebraska Act would relieve
sectional strife and reinvigorate his party. Slavery in the territories remained the most
controversial of the sectional issues and had appeared settled prior to Douglas introducing the
Kansas-Nebraska Act.20
With Douglas’ introduction of the bill to allow popular sovereignty in
the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, the Illinois State Journal editorialized in January 1854,
“We can’t conceive of a greater piece of mischief than is set on foot here by our Senator.”21
In
the South, Douglas’ words were embraced warmly. Georgia Senator Howell Cobb wrote of the
bill that “it is a doctrine worthy of the Democratic party”; southern Whigs also favored the bill,
believing it to be the only possible mode of disposition of the dangerous question of the status of
slavery in the territories.22
Of course, those opposed to slavery viewed the bill negatively. In the
second volume of his History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Massachusetts
Senator Henry Wilson described the Kansas-Nebraska Act as:
“a faithless act… consummated by the servility of Northern men, who, seeing that the
Slave Power was supreme, were led to believe that its ascendancy would outlast their
day; and with that assurance they seemed content to bow to its behests and do its
bidding.”23
Certainly, the question of Nebraska was one that brought forth a great number of
opinions from Senators from Northern states. In his February 3, 1854 speech opposing the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, Ohio Senator Salmon P. Chase spoke the following:
"There can be no real democracy which does not fully maintain the rights of man, as
man... democracy imperatively requires us, while carefully abstaining from
unconstitutional interference with the internal regulations of any State upon the subject of
slavery, or any other subject, to insist upon the practical application of its great principles
in all the legislation of Congress."24
Three days after Chase, his colleague from Ohio, Benjamin Wade, spoke the following:
“Here is a Territory large as an empire... our forefathers expressed their opinion as to
what was best to be done with it. They believed it should be fenced up from the intrusion
of this accursed scourge of mankind, human slavery… shall we undo their work?”25

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On February 21, 1854, Massachusetts' Charles Sumner spoke the following:
"This bill is proposed as a measure of peace. In this way, you vainly think to withdraw
the subject of Slavery from National politics. This is a mistake. Peace depends on mutual
confidence. It can never rest secure on broken faith and injustice.”26
In these three excerpts, we see just how damaging the Kansas-Nebraska Act was in the eyes of
the North. Sumner’s words, especially, ring true for those that strove to preserve the fragile unity
and understood the destructiveness of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that Douglas could not or would
not understand.
The outcry over the Kansas-Nebraska Act reinvigorated the anti-Douglas forces in
Illinois. As Ralph Roske states in His Own Counsel, those Democrats opposed to the act saw it
as a trick whereby an area once closed to slavery had been reopened to it. While it was primarily
those Democrats in the northern part of the state that found themselves opposed, from heavily
Democratic southern Illinois came Lyman Trumbull, a man with Jacksonian values in regard to
economic issues but greatly disturbed by the spread of slavery in the west hoping to challenge his
party’s leadership on the issue.27
Another man drawn into the political realm was the former one-
term Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln. As Lehrman discussed, although his party was
disintegrating over the issue of slavery and had lost its most prominent leader, Webster, Illinois
was still a place for Lincoln to find a respectful audience. Like the Anti-Nebraska Democrats,
Lincoln saw the bill as one that could see the spread, and perhaps the nationalization, of
slavery.28
It was at Peoria, Illinois on October 16, 1854 that Abraham Lincoln's place in national
history began to be forged. At Bloomington and Springfield, Lincoln, considered the “leading
Whig of Illinois”, had expertly countered Douglas’ pro-Nebraska viewpoints but these were
mere dry runs for his speech at Peoria, which Lehrman declared “the turning point.” Following

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Douglas on that day, Lincoln reviewed the Senator’s speech, his conception of popular
sovereignty, and the history of slavery in the United States and its inconsistency with the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln spoke for three hours.29
Many powerful
themes ran through Lincoln’s speech. Arguing for a restoration of the Missouri Compromise,
Lincoln was aware that the Kansas-Nebraska Act had repudiated the spirit of compromise.30
Furthermore, Lincoln objected to the law that would give the Nebraska territory slavery in that it
assumed there could be a moral right in the enslaving of one man over another.31
Likewise,
Lincoln saw the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a “gross breach of faith” to the Declaration of
Independence as well as the national comity preserved by the Missouri Compromise. To save the
Union on the basis of the Declaration of Independence, he argued, made the Union worth
saving.32
In the aftermath of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, James Shields found himself
up for reelection to his seat. With anti-Nebraska legislators now holding the majority in the
legislature, it was to be a steep climb for Shields to retain his seat. Throughout his tenure, he had
closely allied himself with Douglas and at Douglas’ behest, Shields had voted for the Kansas-
Nebraska Act. Led by Sidney Breese, the man Shields had replaced in the Senate, rogue
Democrats began uniting around one plank, to defeat James Shields in a rebuke of Stephen
Douglas.33
Douglas himself attributed the unpopularity of Shields to the growing nativist
sentiment creeping into the political realm, writing to Charles Lanphier in December 1854,
Douglas declared “the Nebraska fight is over, and Know Nothingism has taken its place as the
chief issue in the future.”34
Time was soon to prove him incorrect.
Few anti-Nebraska Democrats garnered significant support, Shields’ primary opponent
for the seat was Lincoln. As Lehrman points out, Lincoln had his problems. First, he was still a

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Whig and therefore not appealing to the Democrats that made up a crucial faction of the anti-
Nebraska majority in the state legislature. Second, he had just been elected to the state legislature
himself and would therefore be ineligible to run for the Senate seat he coveted. A quick
resignation solved the second problem but the first would cause him trouble in the election.35
In
his text on Trumbull, Roske described what transpired. On February 7, 1855, the Democratic
caucus nominated Shields for reelection. When the legislature met the following day, chaos
reigned supreme. On the first ballot, no candidate reached the requisite fifty votes for election,
though Lincoln came closest with forty-five, Shields close behind with forty-one, Trumbull
lagging in third place with a mere five votes. Over the course of the next five ballots, no
candidate could gain the requisite fifty votes, Lincoln slipping, Shields rising only slightly,
Trumbull barely cracking ten votes. Between the sixth and seventh ballots, Shields found himself
replaced with the popular Governor of Illinois, Joel Matteson. By the ninth ballot, as Matteson
edged closer to victory, with Trumbull’s support seven times what it had been on the first ballot
and Lincoln with a mere fifteen votes from diehard Whigs, the former Congressman made a
difficult choice. Knowing he would not win the election and preferring an anti-Nebraska
Democrat to a pro-Nebraska Democrat, Abraham Lincoln swung his supporters to Trumbull’s
side, Trumbull garnering fifty-one votes to Matteson’s forty-seven on the eleventh ballot.36
Mark Krug’s Lyman Trumbull: Conservative Radical picks up the story from there. Once
elected, Trumbull offered a political olive branch to Lincoln, the two closely coordinating their
policies aiming at a cautious, step-by-step creation of a new, moderate Republican party in
Illinois. Both of them astute and shrewd, they were ready to create their new party based on a
platform that called for restoring the Missouri Compromise, a free Kansas, and opposition to
further extension of slavery. As Trumbull departed for Washington in late November 1855,

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however, he was still a Democrat and Lincoln was still a Whig. In the new year, the pair focused
on organizing a party with a minimal platform, believing it to be the only way to win over
Democrats.37
In May, the duo met in Bloomington to help craft a platform for the nascent party.
Richard Carwardine’s Lincoln paints a vivid portrait of what transpired. Although the content of
the speech has been lost to time, in ninety minutes, it is known that Lincoln spoke of the
alarming sea change in southern thought on slavery, the slaveholders’ reversal of the policy of
the Founding Fathers, the need to defend the territorial integrity of the Union as well as
republican values of freedom and equality, the decadent course of northern Democrats like
Douglas, and the need for all opposing slave power to coalesce in a single, united force. Fired by
the moral enormities of slavery and its implications on American politics, Lincoln abandoned the
restraint that had dominated his political life up to that point.38
The convention at Bloomington
was a major landmark in establishing Abraham Lincoln as a force to be reckoned with, a man
with his sights set on greater things. In 1858, Douglas would be up for reelection and Abraham
Lincoln looked like a promising candidate to be Douglas’ opponent for the seat.
From its 1854 passage, the historiographical evolution of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and
its aftermath has largely been framed from two divergent viewpoints, those that supported the
Act and the man who brought it to fruition those that were in opposition. The words from the
Illinois State Journal in 1854, and from Henry Wilson two decades onward show a very similar
mindset to authors like Mark Krug, Lewis Lehrman and Richard Carwardine. Likewise, the
words of Howell Cobb echo the way later Douglas biographers Robert Johannsen and George
Fort Milton tried to justify his actions. Given just how divisive the culture of the 1850s was and
how divisive Douglas’ views were to his contemporaries and those that studied him, this is
unsurprising.

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As Milton wrote in The Eve of Conflict, fallout from the Kansas-Nebraska Act hindered
Douglas’ second attempt at the White House in 1856 and, as Lincoln had done the year before,
he removed himself from contention, ceding the nomination to Pennsylvanian James Buchanan,
who would go on to win election.39
As Carwardine stated in Lincoln, on the national stage, two
political developments in 1857 would help to influence how Illinois Republicans would make
their nomination. First was the Dred Scott decision wherein a Democratic-leaning court
dominated by Southerners and Southern sympathizers galvanized anti-slavery forces. In
defending the decision, Douglas endorsed Chief Justice Roger Taney’s belief that African
Americans were not embraced by the Declaration of Independence and insinuated that
Republicans were bent on a complete social and sexual mixing of the races.40
The second
development concerned Kansas Territory where a constitutional convention had been called in
the town of Lecompton, one that was boycotted by those who advocated for Kansas to enter the
Union as a free state. With pro-slavery supporters dominating the convention, the vote was
overwhelmingly for endorsing a constitution that called for Kansas to enter the Union as a slave
state. Brushing aside the question of slavery, viewing the Lecompton Constitution as a flouting
of the popular will of the populace of Kansas, Douglas came out strongly against its adoption,
cognizant of the political suicide his support of the document would bring. Under Douglas’
leadership, the disparate forces that opposed the Lecompton Constitution, Republican and
Democrat, free-soiler and abolitionist, succeeded in blocking the passage of the Lecompton
Constitution through Congress.41
At the June 1858 state convention, the first and only choice for the Republican Party to
challenge Stephen Douglas for the Senate was Abraham Lincoln, only the second time in
American history that a senatorial candidate had been endorsed by a state party convention. As

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William Harris discusses in Lincoln’s Rise to the Presidency, the speech Lincoln gave to the
assembled crowd would go down in history as one of the most controversial in his career.
Declaring “a house divided against itself cannot stand”, Lincoln stated that while he did not
expect the Union to be dissolved, he did expect the cessation of the division, the country either
all slave or all free. He went on to state that the Kansas-Nebraska doctrine of popular sovereignty
in the territories and the proslavery Dred Scott decision placed the “chief bosses” in
Washington—Senator Douglas and Presidents Pierce and Buchanan—squarely in the service of
the proslavery cause. The underlying purpose of the Nebraska doctrine and Dred Scott decision,
Lincoln argued, was to educate and mold public opinions in the United States, or at least in the
North, to not care about whether slavery is voted up or down. The only way to prevent the
nationalization of slavery, Lincoln argued, was to deny Stephen Douglas’ return to Washington
come the new Congress. Stating Douglas had no moral scruples in regards to the institution of
slavery, he charged the Senator would not oppose reopening the foreign slave trade that had been
closed for five decades.42
With his nomination in hand, in July 1858, Lincoln wrote Douglas to ask “Will it be
agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time and address the same
audiences the present canvass?”43
Damon Wells wrote of what happened next in his Stephen
Douglas: The Last Years, 1857-1861. Lincoln had little to gain from the challenge, largely
unknown outside of the state and a leader in a party that was still relatively unseasoned and
untested, Lincoln’s record was undistinguished next to Douglas’. Lincoln could not have
expected to rival Douglas as a drawing card but saw public debates as a way to increase his
standing and improve his chances at defeating Douglas for the Senate seat. Time would prove
Lincoln correct in his assumption; the crowds came to see Stephen Douglas but over the course

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of seven debates in August, September, and October, Abraham Lincoln would end up the figure
that the crowds would remember.44
Although it made more sense for Douglas to refuse the request, the Senator understood
that such an action would carry the appearance of running away from Lincoln with no guarantee
that Lincoln would not pursue Douglas on the campaign trail.45
In his reply to Lincoln, Douglas
named seven cities spread throughout Illinois— Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston,
Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton—and set the terms by which he would agree to the debates.46
Four
of the seven cities—Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro and Alton—were firmly partisan, the former
two heavily Republican, the latter two heavily Democratic. Of the remaining three, Galesburg
was moderately Republican, Charleston and Quincy moderately Democratic.47
Lincoln and Douglas were a study in contrasts for the assembled crowds. Douglas
dressed well, spoke at a rapid pace impassionedly, Lincoln’s clothes were ill-fitting and he spoke
in a calmer, more deliberate tone. Douglas’ words had immediate but short-lived impacts,
Lincoln’s plain speech tended to have a longer-lasting, more powerful impact on the crowd. The
assembly was “partly a debate, partly a canvass, partly a trial, and partly a spectacle.” The Senate
election of 1858 served as a portrait for the nation at-large struggling with the question of
slavery. With its land stretching from North to South, Illinois represented in microcosm the
sectional forces that were tearing the nation at-large apart. The residents of the southern part of
the state had its origins in the South and though most southern Illinoisans had never owned
slaves, they sympathized with Southerners on social grounds. To them, freedom for African
Americans meant social problems. In fact, African Americans had been so large a problem in the
state, both north and south, that the legislature had banned free African Americans from entering
the state altogether in 1853.48
With the north of Illinois largely Republican and the south largely

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Democratic, the election of 1858 would be decided in the central section of the state that had
previously leaned towards the defunct Whig and Know-Nothing parties. While they leaned
against slavery, they were far from radical about it. It was here that the candidates developed
their strategies.49
Indeed, the candidates framed their largely spontaneous speeches differently based on
where they were debating. The first debate, in Republican Ottawa, saw Douglas and Lincoln
appealing to those Whigs that had yet to commit themselves to either Republicans or Democrats,
those that had largely endorsed the nativist American Party in 1856. Due to Douglas’ opposition
to the Lecompton Constitution, Democrats loyal to James Buchanan were determined to run anti-
Douglas Democrats, dubbed “Danites” by those loyal to the Senator, for the legislature; to ensure
his reelection, Douglas felt he needed the votes of conservative Whigs. Douglas branded Lincoln
a radical, citing the “House Divided” speech as proof. He went on to argue that Whigs and
Democrats had always agreed on slavery—pointing to the bipartisan support of the Compromise
of 1850.50
Cognizant of the largely Republican audience, he declared “I do not hold that because
the Negro is our inferior… he ought to be a slave… I hold that humanity and Christianity both
require that the Negro shall have and enjoy every right, every privilege, and every immunity
consistent with the safety of the society in which he lives.”51
In his reply, Lincoln denied
Douglas’ claim that he was a radical, reading from his October 1854 speech at Peoria where he
acknowledged the validity of the Fugitive Slave Act, the constitutional rights to slavery, and his
opinion on race.52
Lincoln argued that while he felt whites were superior to African Americans,
“there is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated
in the Declaration of Independence.”53
Lincoln’s pronouncement on race was perhaps a bit
conservative for the Ottawa audience but with an understanding that the words he said would be

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printed in newspapers from northern to southern Illinois, he felt obligated to state that his views
did not threaten the views on race in central Illinois.54
Both sides claimed victory in the first debate, each exaggerating the failure of the
opposition to their benefit and the largely partisan newspapers framed the debate accordingly.
The Republican Alton Weekly Courier stated in their editorial of the debate, “Stephen A. Douglas
is a used up man… Douglas cannot be returned to the U. S. Senate, unless by an interposition of
divine providence.”55
The Democratic-leaning St. Louis Morning Herald, on the other hand,
reported, “if Douglas commences by triumphing in a Republican district, Lincoln may as well
hang up his hat, take a back seat, and wait until 1860, as Douglas will then be President, and then
Mr. Lincoln may make another effort for an election to the United States Senate, without having
a Douglas to contend with.”56
The second debate, at Freeport, was perhaps the most crucial of the seven, setting the
stage for Douglas’ victory in 1858 and Lincoln’s in 1860. As Douglas had spoken first at the
Ottawa debate, so Lincoln spoke first at Freeport. In his opening statement, Lincoln asked a
number of questions of Douglas, most importantly “Can the people of a United States territory,
in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its
limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?”57
Douglas’ affirmative reply, stating that
“the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please”, was in line with
his prior views yet never had they been stated so clearly.58
As in Ottawa, the newspapers were
firmly partisan. The Republican Chicago Press and Tribune noting “So disgusting was
[Douglas’] language that the people on the ground peremptorily hushed him up three times.”59
The Democratic Chicago Times, meanwhile, noted that Lincoln’s “shivering, quaking, trembling,

Kett, 18
and his agony during the last fifteen minutes of Judge Douglas’ speech was positively painful to
the crowd who witnessed his behavior.”60
The third debate, in Jonesboro, took place in mid-September. Nearly as far south as
Freeport is north, both candidates took more conservative positions relative to their audience.
Douglas declared that the steadfast principles Republicans had taken in the northern part of the
state “grew paler… in proportion as public sentiment moderated and changed in this direction…
Abolitionists in the North, anti-Nebraska men down about Springfield, and in this neighborhood,
they contented themselves with talking about the expediency of the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise.” In another criticism of the “House Divided” speech, Douglas assured the audience
that the Union could exist forever “if each state will carry out the principles upon which our
institutions were founded.”61
In Lincoln’s reply, defending the “House Divided” speech, he
stated “when this government was first established, it was the policy of the founders to prohibit
the spread of slavery into the new Territories of the United States, where it had not existed. But
Judge Douglas and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon a new basis, by
which it is to become national and perpetual.”62
In their reporting on the debate, the Chicago
Times made note of the intense enthusiasm that followed Douglas throughout the state, stating
“there is but one sentiment, one feeling and there is but one purpose, which purpose is to re-elect
[Douglas] to the Senate.”63
In contrast, the Peoria Transcript stated the debates were starting to
turn the tide for Lincoln, stating “we are more and more convinced of [Lincoln’s] superiority
over Douglas in every respect—as a debater, a statesman and an upright and incorruptible
man.”64
The fourth debate, at moderately Democratic Charleston, was the first in a city that was
not safely in partisan hands. In trying to appeal to the more Democratic audience, Lincoln began

Kett, 19
his speech by explaining his views on racial equality. “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of
bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races… I do
not understand that because I do not want a Negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her
for a wife... it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making slaves or wives of
Negroes.”65
In the wider scope of history, reading these words can have a devastating effect on
one’s opinion of Abraham Lincoln, but the larger context of why Lincoln made such a
pronouncement must be understood. Victory in 1858 was not going to come from the
Republicans in northern Illinois or the Democrats in southern Illinois, it was going to come from
the former conservative Whigs that had yet to align with either major party. In his reply to
Lincoln, Douglas did his best to tie Lincoln to those more radical types within the Republican
Party and again repeated his belief in Lincoln moderating of his views depending on where he
was speaking.66
The newspapers, as they had thrice before, aligned with their preferred
candidates. The Chicago Times declared in their headline, “Douglas Has the people with Him”.67
The Chicago Democrat, meanwhile, noted in theirs, “Lincoln Strips the Giant Dry”.68
Douglas gave the first speech in moderately Republican Galesburg. After a defense of his
roles in bringing the Kansas-Nebraska Act to reality and denying the pro-slavery advocates at
Lecompton, Kansas their constitution, Douglas went on to declare his opinion that the United
States government “was made by white men for the benefit of white men in all time to come.”69
In his reply, Lincoln disagreed with Douglas on that point. If he could not come out as strongly
for equality in Jonesboro or Charleston, he certainly felt much safer doing so in the more
agreeable political climate of Galesburg. Lincoln argued that no President, no member of
Congress, no “living man upon the whole earth” had ever stated that the Declaration of
Independence did not apply to African Americans “until the necessities of the present policy of

Kett, 20
the Democratic Party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation”.70
Ostensibly, Lincoln
was trying to win over the moderate crowd in Galesburg with such a bold pronouncement.
Quincy’s Daily Whig proclaimed that “[Lincoln] met, and successfully refuted, every argument
made by Judge Douglas”.71
The Chicago Times, declaring Lincoln a “mottled candidate”, stated
that he had “damaged himself extensively in the estimation of the abolitionists by his Jonesboro
and Charleston speeches”.72
Certainly, in his attempts to appeal to the vastly different populaces
of Illinois, Lincoln had framed his views on race differently and it was not surprising for
Douglas and his supporters to call Lincoln out on Lincoln having done so.
The final two debates at Quincy and Alton, the former moderately Democratic, the latter
firmly Democratic, saw Lincoln and Douglas largely repeating and refining claims that they had
made over the course of the first five debates. In Quincy, Lincoln yet again distanced himself
from more radical elements in the Republican Party and stressed the importance of electing a
Senator opposed to slavery. Douglas yet again skirted the slavery issue by proclaiming his belief
in popular sovereignty. As the Cincinnati Gazette reported, in Alton, “the novelty had worn
off… little that was new could now be expected on either side.”73
Over the course of seven stops, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln’s “Great
Debates” had helped to open up the political realm to a new way of conducting politics in the
United States. As the newspaper accounts help to show, the partisanship that has been a constant
plague on the American political sphere is nothing new. The firmly Democratic papers were
quick to point out Lincoln’s flaws, the firmly Republican papers did the same with Douglas. The
uniqueness of the debates had brought newspaper coverage not only from Illinois itself but also
from Missouri, Ohio, New York and beyond. The country at-large seemed to want to better
understand the “Little Giant” and his opponent, “Long Abe”.

Kett, 21
On November 2, 1858, roughly two weeks after the debates had concluded, the people of
Illinois made their way to the polls to cast their ballots. Statewide, the final count showed
125,430 votes for Republicans, 121,609 votes for Douglas Democrats and 5,071 votes for the
“Danite” Democrats aligned with President Buchanan. It was, of course, not the people that
elected United States Senators in 1858 but the state assembly. From 1850 onward, Republican-
leaning districts in Illinois had seen a monumental growth in populace compared to Democratic-
leaning districts but as the legislature was still apportioned based on the 1850 census, the map
favored Douglas. While Danites had threatened to oppose Douglas’ reelection, when the
Democratic caucus met to support a candidate for the Senate, they unanimously chose Douglas.
When the Republican Party, who had unanimously chosen Lincoln, agreed to a joint session, the
votes were cast and Douglas received a narrow victory of 54 to 46 on January 6, 1859. It was
Douglas’ worst showing to date.74
1860 saw a rematch of Douglas and Lincoln on a grander stage. In late April and early
May of that year, the Democratic Party had met in Charleston, South Carolina to nominate their
candidate for President. Douglas went into the convention the single strongest choice for the
nomination but with the majority of Southern delegates in steadfast opposition to Douglas,
neither he nor any other candidate could win the requisite amount of support from delegates.
Refusing to compromise and remove himself from contention, Douglas singlehandedly derailed
the convention in Charleston. When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore in June, Douglas
did end up with the Democratic nomination but at a high cost; a little more than a third of the
thirty-three United States ended up sending full delegations to Baltimore, Douglas procuring the
Democratic nomination with support from states that Democrats stood no chance of carrying in
the general election. With the nomination of Vice President John Breckinridge by defecting

Kett, 22
delegates, the Democratic Party would run two candidates for the Presidency in 1860. Further
hurting Douglas’ prospects was the candidacy of John Bell for the fly-by-night Constitutional
Union Party whose barebones party platform endorsing the Constitution and the preservation of
the Union drew support in the border states.75
That the Republicans would nominate Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency was a stroke
of luck for the Illinoisan. Lincoln had the good fortune of the Republicans having chosen
Chicago as the city to meet in for their second national convention. Having received the
nomination of the Illinois State Republican Convention in early May, he stayed in contact with
his supporters as they tried to win over other state delegations. The influential Chicago Press and
Tribune wrote a long editorial for Republican delegates extolling the virtues of their preferred
candidate, ceding the fact that he would come second in the hearts and minds of many. The real
challenge for Lincoln’s supporters was to deny New York Senator William Seward the
nomination on the first ballot. When Seward was denied just that, delegates supporting other
candidates from Ohio Senator Salmon Chase to Pennsylvania Senator Simon Cameron, to the
venerable Edward Bates of Missouri began to come around and support Lincoln, whose victory
would come on the third ballot.76
Lincoln wouldn’t be on any Southern ballots. Douglas would but as the Freeport Doctrine
had hurt him nationally the way it had helped him in Illinois, Breckenridge was recognized
throughout the region as the Democratic Party’s proper nominee. As had been expected, Bell
drew the support of border states, winning Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The true battle
was in the North and it was there that Lincoln triumphed. Although his popular vote totals were
enough to guarantee him a second-place finish among the people, electorally, Douglas was
blown out of the water, only managing a narrow victory over Bell in Missouri and receiving

Kett, 23
three of New Jersey’s seven electoral votes. With a mere forty percent of the vote, all from the
North, Abraham Lincoln won election and was sworn into office as America started to come
apart at the seams.77
The historiography of the 1858 and 1860 elections, much like that of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act and its aftereffects, largely aligns with the partisan viewpoints that were prevalent
in the 1858 newspaper articles covering the Great Debates between Douglas and Lincoln. Just as
Johannsen, Milton, and Wells were quick to frame Douglas in the most positive light possible, so
Harris, Carwardine, and Lehrman were quick to frame Lincoln in the same light. These two men,
so divisive to their supporters in their own time, are certain to remain divisive figures for all of
American history. It is, of course, essential to the researcher to understand this and to do their
best to filter out the inevitable bias that they come across.
In April 1861, Senator Douglas delivered a speech in Springfield before a joint session of
the state legislature. Unusually for the Little Giant, he admitted to having erred in favor of the
South when it had come time for compromise and reconciliation in the previous decade.
Understanding of the importance of staying true to the Union, the Senator declared “the shortest
way to peace is the most stupendous and unanimous preparation for war.” He reminded his
heavily Republican audience of the duty they owed to themselves, to the generations that would
follow and to the cause of self-government. Once he had concluded his remarks, the crowd gave
him a standing ovation.78
On May 1, speaking in Chicago, Douglas reaffirmed the statements he
had made the week before, stating “there can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots and
traitors.” Douglas’ opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, he argued, set the South on the
path towards civil war. Still, having twice married women from the South and having fathered
three children born in the South, Douglas was far from malicious, stating “the innocent must not

Kett, 24
suffer, nor women and children be the victims.”79
In declaring his support for the Union cause,
Douglas may have simply been trying to elicit support for himself for his 1864 reelection. In the
end, neither Illinois nor Washington would see how Douglas would act as the war raged on.
Barely a month after his speech in Chicago, Douglas passed away there at the age of forty-eight
from typhoid fever.
In the grand scope of history, there are always the victors and the also-rans. In Illinois
politics, in spite of his prominence during his lifetime, Stephen Douglas is an eternal also-ran to
Abraham Lincoln. The great divide that tore open the United States in the 1850s was an
inevitability but Douglas’ Jacksonian desire to bring popular sovereignty to the territories was
akin to the fuse of a cannon being lit, destined to explode in civil war. The first compromise that
helped the country stave off armed conflict happened roughly thirty years after the ratification of
the Constitution. Thirty years hence, however, the necessity of a second compromise did little to
stop the sectionalism that led to the demise of one of the two main political parties and the rise of
prominent voices destined for greatness who were dead set against Douglas’ views on popular
sovereignty and its potential impact on slavery. Stephen Douglas was, at least, smart enough to
plead for the Union cause after Fort Sumter but his death made it impossible for him to
overcome the years that he had spent giving his support to those that sought to continue slavery
in the United States.

Kett, 25
Endnotes
1
George Fort Milton, The Eve Of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War.
(Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1934), 19-24.
2
Robert W. Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973),
189.
3
J. Sean Callan, Courage and Country: James Shields: More Than Irish Luck. (Lake
Forest, Ill.: 1st Books Library, 2004), 175-178.
4
Callan, 181-186.
5
Callan, 189-190.
6
Stephen A. Douglas. “Popular Sovereignty in the Territories.” Harper’s Monthly
Magazine, September 1859, 537.
7
Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas, 138.
8
Robert W. Johannsen, ed., The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas. (Urbana, Ill., University
of Illinois Press, 1961), 190.
9
Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas, 262-263.
10
11
12
Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas, 270.
13
14
Milton, 74-77.
15
16
17
18
Lewis E. Lehrman, Lincoln At Peoria: The Turning Point. (Mechanicsburg, Penn.:
Stackpole Books, 2008), 73-75.
19
“The Nebraska Question: Comprising Speeches Made in the U. S. Senate by Mr.
Douglas, Mr. Chase, Mr. Smith, Mr. Everett, Mr. Wade, Mr. Seward, Mr. Badger and Mr.
Sumner Together With the History of the Missouri Compromise.” (New York: J. S. Redfield,
1854), 43.
20
Lehrman, 75-76.
21
Illinois State Journal, January 15, 1854.
22
Milton, 128.
23
Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of Slave Power in America, vol. 2 (Boston,
Houghton Mifflin, 1874), 404-405.
24
“The Nebraska Question”, 60.
25
26
27
Ralph J. Roske, His Own Counsel: The Life and Times of Lyman Trumbull. (Reno,
Nev., University of Nevada Press, 1979), 19-20.
28
Lehrman, 8.
29
Lehrman, 52-58.
30
Lehrman, 316.
31
Lehrman, 319.
32
Lehrman, 139-141.
33
Callan, 193-197.

Kett, 26
34
Johannsen, ed., The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas, 330.
35
Lehrman, 161-162.
36
Roske, 25-26.
37
Mark Krug, Lyman Trumbull: Conservative Radical. (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1965),
109-110.
38
Richard J. Carwardine, Lincoln. (London: Pearson, 2003), 67-68.
39
Milton, 224-229.
40
Carwardine, 71-72.
41
Carwardine, 73-74.
42
William C. Harris, Lincoln’s Rise to the Presidency. (Lawrence, Kan.: University of
Kansas Press, 91-93.
43
Abraham Lincoln and Don E. Fehrenbacher. Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858. (New
York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1989), 479.
44
Wells, 83.
45
Wells, 84.
46
Johannsen, ed., The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas, 423-424.
47
Wells, 85-86.
48
Wells, 86-89.
49
Wells, 90.
50
Harris, 114-115.
51
George Haven Putnam, ed., The Political Debates Between Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen A. Douglas in the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 in Illinois Together With Certain
Preceding Speeches of Each at Chicago, Springfield, etc. (New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons,
1912), 109.
52
Harris, 116.
53
Putnam, ed., 114.
54
Harris, 117.
55
Alton Weekly Courier, August 26, 1858.
56
St. Louis, Mo., Morning Herald, August 24, 1858.
57
Putnam, ed., 136.
58
Putnam, ed., 144.
59
Chicago Press and Tribune, August 30, 1858.
60
Chicago Times, August 29, 1858.
61
Putnam, ed., 170-179.
62
Putnam, ed., 181.
63
Chicago Times, September 17, 1858.
64
Peoria Transcript, September 20, 1858.
65
Putnam, ed., 207.
66
Putnam, ed., 235-237.
67
Chicago Times, September 21, 1858.
68
Chicago Democrat, September 22, 1858.
69
Putnam, ed., 257-265.
70
Putnam, ed., 269.
71
Daily Whig (Quincy, Ill.), October 9, 1858.
72
Chicago Times, October 13, 1858.

Kett, 27
73
Cincinnati Gazette, October 20, 1858.
74
75
Wells, 205-240.
76
Chicago Press and Tribune, May 15, 1860.
77
Milton, 501.
78
New York Tribune, May 1, 1861.
79
New York Tribune, June 13, 1861.

Kett, 28
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Alton Weekly Courier. August 26, 1858.
Chicago Democrat. September 22, 1858.
Chicago Press and Tribune. August 30, 1858, and May 15, 1860.
Chicago Times. August 29, 1858, September 17, 1858, September 21, 1858, and October 13,
1858.
Cincinnati Gazette. October 20, 1858.
Daily Whig (Quincy, Ill.). October 9, 1858.
Douglas, Stephen A. “Popular Sovereignty in the Territories.” Harper’s Monthly Magazine,
September 1859, 519-537.
Illinois State Journal. January 15, 1854.
Johannsen, Robert W., ed. The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois
Press, 1961.
Lincoln, Abraham, and Don E. Fehrenbacher. Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858. New York:
Literary Classics of the United States, 1989.
“The Nebraska Question: Comprising Speeches Made in the U. S. Senate by Mr. Douglas, Mr.
Chase, Mr. Smith, Mr. Everett, Mr. Wade, Mr. Seward, Mr. Badger and Mr. Sumner
Together With the History of the Missouri Compromise.” New York: J. S. Redfield,
1854.
New York Tribune. May 1, 1861 and June 13, 1861.
Peoria Transcript. September 20, 1858.
Putnam, George Haven, ed. The Political Debates Between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A.
Douglas in the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 in Illinois Together With Certain Preceding
Speeches of Each at Chicago, Springfield, etc. New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1912.
St. Louis, Mo. Morning Herald, August 24, 1858.

Kett, 29
Secondary Sources
Callan, J. Sean. Courage and Country: James Shields: More Than Irish Luck. Lake Forest, Ill.:
1st Books Library, 2004.
Carwardine, Richard J. Lincoln. London: Pearson, 2003.
Harris, William C. Lincoln’s Rise to the Presidency. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of
Kansas, 2007.
Johannsen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Krug, Mark M. Lyman Trumbull: Conservative Radical. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1965.
Lehrman, Lewis E. Lincoln At Peoria: The Turning Point. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole
Books, 2008.
Milton, George Fort. The Eve Of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1934.
Roske, Ralph J. His Own Counsel: The Life and Times of Lyman Trumbull. Reno, Nev.,
University of Nevada Press, 1979.
Wells, Damon. Stephen Douglas: The Last Years, 1857-1861. Austin, Tex.: University of Texas
Press, 1971.
Wilson, Henry. History of the Rise and Fall of Slave Power in America, vol. 2. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1874.

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