Examining Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas's Senate Debates by David Alex;

Author:David, Alex;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Enslow Publishing, LLC
Published: 2020-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER THE DEBATES

People were interested in the debates, not just in Illinois, but all around the country. Although it was only the people who attended the debates who could watch the speakers state their points, newspapers sent reporters to write about what was happening in Illinois. Therefore, everyone in the United States could read and understand the most public argument about slavery, this peculiar institution that the United States would soon have to make a decision about.

Senate Election Process

At the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Senate elections were very different from the way they are today. Voters at that time did not directly cast their ballots for senators. Instead, they voted only for members of the state legislature. The state legislature then selected the senators who would represent the state in the US Senate. If voters supported a particular candidate for the Senate, they chose legislators from his political party. The party that held the majority in the state legislature controlled the selection of the senator.

The race between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas was very close. Both speakers performed well in the debates, with Douglas outperforming Lincoln early on before Lincoln grew comfortable with the format. Many of their speeches repeated points covered earlier. Both discussed many topics that had little to do with the election, with Lincoln defending Senator Trumbull and Douglas explaining his differences from President Buchanan.

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