Lincoln Douglas Debates

[Gene C]

This story from "The Prairie President". I don't recall reading this before, so it may not be a true story.

One instance of Lincoln's drollery is on record in connection
with the Alton debate. Douglas had the opening speech there
and according to Horace White, the reporter
for the Chicago Press and Tribune, Lincoln was occupying
a seat in the rear of the platform. His next neighbor was
a young lady with whom he had been engaged in conversation
before the debate began. When Douglas had finished
his opening speech, Lincoln rose and handed his
travel-stained linen duster to the young lady and said in
a low tone: "Now hold my coat while I stone Stephen."

(For those of you who may have missed the joke, it is a reference to an event in the Bible as told in Acts 7: 54-58, the stoning of Stephen.

[LincolnMan]

Never heard that stiry before- nice one.

[STS Lincolnite]

I have been doing some reading on the Lincoln-Douglas debates of late and have come across this anecdote a number of times. So far I have seen it attached variably to Ottawa, Freeport, Galesburg, and Alton. Accounts also vary as to who he hands his “duster” to. Those described include: “Judge Trumbull”, a “young lady with whom he had been having a conversation”, “the chairman of the first debate”, “Judge T. Lyle Dickey”, a more non-descript “young woman”, and also “a bystander”. In some accounts Lincoln says his line about stoning Stephen in quiet tones to the person to whom he handed his duster, in others he says the line out loud to the crowd and elicits laughter.

Though this is an interesting little anecdote, its variations are all over the board. I have yet to find an account I find particularly credible.

[Gene C]

I don't know much about the Lincoln Douglas Senate Debates of 1858. Most of what I've read was pretty boring to me. This gave me a better understanding of them.

Currently reading "The Lincoln Reader" edited by Paul Angle
here are some excerpt from the chapter - The Great Debates - part 10 by James Randall
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli...ew=theater

"WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT— the parades and rallies, the oratory, the long columns of newsprint? James G. Randall dispassionately weighs the arguments of the rival candidates.
It is surprising how little attention has been given to the actual content of the debates.

Swinging up and down and back and forth across Illinois, making the welkin ring and setting the prairies on fire, Lincoln and Douglas debated — what.? That is the surprising thing. With all the problems that might have been put before the people as proper matter for their consideration in choosing a Senator... these two candidates for the Senate talked as if there were only one issue. Thus instead of a representative coverage of the problems of mid-century America, the debaters gave virtually all their attention to slavery in the territories. More specifically, they were concentrating on the question whether Federal prohibition of slavery in western territories, having been dropped after full discussion in 1850, should be revived as if it were the only means of dealing with the highly improbable chance that human bondage would ever take root in such a place as Kansas, Nebraska, or New Mexico. It is indeed a surprising thing to suppose that the negligible amount of human bondage in Kansas, or the alleged inability of the people of that nascent state to decide the matter for themselves, constituted the only American question of sufficient importance to occupy nearly all the attention of senatorial candidates in one of the most famous forensic episodes of the century."

Here are three more short quotes from Randall
"The debate was a spectacle, a drama, an exhibition, almost a sporting event. In addition it was a serious matter, but its dramatic quality could not be ignored, and that quality would perhaps have been lost if the speakers had not used the language of controversy. In other words, the Lincoln-Douglas canvass was not an effort to work out a formula of agreement. Had such an effort been made, it would have been found that these two leaders had much in common. On the broad problem of racial relations they did not fundamentally differ."

"Lincoln was not proposing any marked change in the depressed status of the Negro, “I am not ... in favor of . . . the social and political equality of the
white and black races” he declared.

"On the whole, any attempt to add luster to Lincoln’s fame by belittling Douglas or by exaggerating the seriousness of differences between the two men, would be a perversion of history. In the sequel, when the severe national crisis came, Douglas “defended the Inaugural address of Mr. Lincoln against the assault of opposition senators,” and stood firmly with Lincoln in upholding the union."

Your thoughts?

[RJNorton]

Gene, I have thought that Douglas was mainly arguing that the people living in the territories should have the right to vote on whether or not slavery would be legal in their territory. And Lincoln argued that the federal government - Congress - should have the power to decide the slavery question in those areas. So, in my view, Douglas' position was actually more democratic than Lincoln's.

Does this explanation seem too simplistic or does it get to the crux of their arguments?

[Rob Wick]

Quote:"On the whole, any attempt to add luster to Lincoln’s fame by belittling Douglas or by exaggerating the seriousness of differences between the two men, would be a perversion of history. In the sequel, when the severe national crisis came, Douglas “defended the Inaugural address of Mr. Lincoln against the assault of opposition senators,” and stood firmly with Lincoln in upholding the union."

One thing that must be remembered about Randall is that he often tried to make Lincoln out to be as conservative as Douglas, which just doesn't fit the reality of the situation. There was a SERIOUS difference between them. To be sure, when the question of Civil War went from hypothetical to all too real, Douglas showed his support for the Union, but one would expect that from any citizen.

Randall took a lot of heat after he wrote "The Blundering Generation," saying that slavery was not enough of a reason for the sections to fight. He never meant to downplay slavery as an institution but rather as a cause of the war. I presented a paper on Randall's creation of his thesis at the Conference on Illinois History, which you can find here.

As much as I admire and respect Randall, his leanings were too pro-Southern, even drawing a rebuke from Allen Nevins when Randall wrote The Civil War and Reconstruction.

Best
Rob