In 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were candidates for the United States Senate from Illinois. Mr. Douglas, who was a Democrat, had already served as Senator, and was a candidate for reëlection. Mr. Lincoln was the Republican nominee. Both had had considerable experience in politics. Arrangements were made between them to jointly discuss the political issues at seven different places, namely, Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, August 27; Jonesboro, September 15; Charlestown, September 18; Galesburg, October 7; Quincy, October 13, and Alton, October 15.
These were the most noted public debates in American history. The slavery question, with its various side issues, was the chief topic of discussion. These debates were listened to by immense concourses of people, and excited the interest of the whole country. Mr. Lincoln assumed that slavery was wrong, and opposed the extension of it, while Mr. Douglas, without considering the moral phase of the question, was in favor of leaving to the vote of the inhabitants of a territory whether it should become a State with or without slavery.
Mr. Lincoln's "divided house" argument, first used at Springfield, in June, when he was nominated for Senator, was one of the strongest applications of scripture ever given. He said:
"We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new—North as well as South."
In the course of the debates, Mr. Lincoln said of slavery:
"The real issue in this controversy—the one pressing upon every mind—is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong.... Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent it from growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run of time there may be some promise of an end to it."
Because of the great principles involved, and the wide notoriety of these debates, Mr. Lincoln said, at Quincy:
"I was aware, when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and I were to have these seven joint discussions, that they were the successive acts of a drama—perhaps I should say, to be enacted, not merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the face of the nation, and, to some extent, by my relation to him, and not from anything in myself, in the face of the world; and I am anxious that they should be conducted with dignity and in good temper, which would be befitting the vast audiences before which it was conducted."
In the first debate, at Ottawa, Mr. Douglas said, in reference to the early career of himself and Mr. Lincoln in Illinois:
"I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem."