Scholarship
The 1858 series of seven "joint discussions," as they were first called, between U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas and Illinois Republican Party leader Abraham Lincoln were unprecedented. Never before had men openly campaigned for senator, especially by engaging in a direct public contest filled with dramatic debates. People turned out by the thousands to hear these two political rivals debate the future of slavery in America, and newspapers across the country covered the exchanges. Democrats ultimately retained control of the assembly and reelected Douglas, but Lincoln knew he had done well for the new Republicans and for the anti-slavery cause, assuring correspondents afterward that the issue was "not half-settled." (By Matthew Pinsker)
Note Cards
Events
People
Documents
Images
Bibliography
Chicago Style Entry | Link |
---|---|
Adkison, Danny M. "Invoking the Framers: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates." White House Studies 5, no. 3 (2005): 401-410. | View Record |
Anastaplo, George. Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999. | View Record |
Anderson, James W. " ‘The Real Issue’: An Analysis of the Final Lincoln-Douglas Debate." Lincoln Herald 69, no. 1 (1967): 27-39. | View Record |
Belz, Herman. "Rhetoric and Deliberation in the Debate Over Slavery -- Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate by David Zarefsky." Review of Politics 54, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 338. | View Record |
Beveridge, John W. "Lincoln's Views on Slavery and Blacks as Expressed in the Debates with Stephen A. Douglas." Lincoln Herald 84, no. 3 (1981): 791-800. | View Record |
Bishop, Erin I. "Teaching Lincoln at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum." Magazine of History 21 (2007): 39. | View Record |
Blight, David W. "Lincoln on the Moral Bankruptcy of Slavery: Inside the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858." Magazine of History 21, no. 4 (October 2007): 56. | View Record |
Brod, Raymond. " ‘All Prairiedom has Broken Loose.’ " Chicago History 25, no. 1 (1996): 58-72. | View Record |
Bromwich, David. "A Republic Divided." Daedalus 135, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 5-10. | View Record |
Burlingame, Michael. "Mucilating Douglas and Mutilating Lincoln: How Shorthand Reporters Covered the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858." Lincoln Herald 96, no. 1 (1994): 18-23. | View Record |
Collins, Bruce. "The Lincoln-Douglas Contest of 1858 and Illinois' Electorate." Journal of American Studies 20, no. 3 (1986): 391-420. | View Record |
Cowan, Hilary. "Fresh New Finds--A House Divided: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates." Electronic Learning 15, no. 3 (November 1995): 43. | View Record |
Etcheson, Nicole. "A living, creeping lie": Abraham Lincoln on Popular Sovereignty." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 29, no. 2 (2008): 1-25. | View Record |
Fay, Jim. "Lincoln and Douglas at the Bryant Cottage." Lincoln Herald 100, no. 1 (1998): 11-28. | View Record |
Fehrenbacher, Don E. "Only His Stepchildren: Lincoln and the Negro." Civil War History 20, no. 4 (1974): 293-310. | View Record |
Fehrenbacher, Don E. "The Origins and Purpose of Lincoln's ‘House-Divided’ Speech." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 46, no. 4 (March 1960): 615-643. | View Record |
Fehrenbacher, Don E."Lincoln, Douglas, and the ‘Freeport Question’." American Historical Review 66, no. 3 (April 1961): 599-617. | View Record |
Frisch, Morton J. "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and History." Lincoln Herald 57, no. 4 (1956): 17-19. | View Record |
Gauen, Patrick E. "Great Debate." St. Louis Post – Dispatch. August 29, 1994. | View Record |
Good, Timothy S. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the Making of a President. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2007. | View Record |
Greenstone, J. David. "Political Culture and American Political Development: Liberty, Union, and the Liberal Bipolarity." Studies in American Political Development 1 (1986): 1-49. | View Record |
Guelzo, Allen C. "Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858." Journal of American History 94, no. 2 (September 2007): 391-417. | View Record |
Guelzo, Allen C. Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. | View Record |
Harper, Robert S. "New Light from a Lincoln Letter on the Story of the Publication of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates." Ohio Historical Quarterly 68, no. 2 (1959): 177-187. | View Record |
Harris, William C. Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency. Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2007. | View Record |
Hartnett, Stephen. "Lincoln and Douglas Meet the Abolitionist David Walker as Prisoners Debate Slavery: Empowering Education, Applied Communication, and Social Justice." Journal of Applied Communication Research 26, no. 2 (May 1998): 232. | View Record |
Heckman, Richard Allen. "Out-Of-State Influences and the Lincoln-Douglas Campaign of 1858." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 58, no. 1 (1966): 30-47. | View Record |
Heckman, Richard Allen. "Political Fortunes of Lincoln and Douglas in 1858-59." Lincoln Herald 67, no. 4 (1965): 161-170. | View Record |
Heckman, Richard Allen. "Some Impressions of Lincoln and Douglas during the Campaign of 1858." Lincoln Herald 66, no. 3 (1964): 135-139. | View Record |
Heckman, Richard Allen. "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A Case Study in ‘Stump Speaking’." Civil War History 12, no. 1 (1966): 54-56. | View Record |
Heckman, Richard Allen. Lincoln vs. Douglas: The Great Debates Campaign. Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1967. | View Record |
Hillbruner, Anthony. "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A Study in Equality." Lincoln Herald 62, no. 1 (1960): 3-12. | View Record |
Holzer, Harold. "Re-Creating the Great Debate." American History 29, no. 5 (November 1994): 68. | View Record |
Horner, Harlan Hoyt. "The Substance of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates." Lincoln Herald 63, no. 3 (1961): 139-149. | View Record |
Huston, James L. Stephen A. Douglas and the Dilemmas of Democratic Equality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. | View Record |
Jaffa, Harry V. ""Value Consensus" in Democracy: The Issue in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates." The American Political Science Review 52, no. 3 (September 1958): 745-753. | View Record |
Jaffa, Harry V. Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. | View Record |
January, Brendan. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Cornerstones of Freedom. New York: Children's Press, 1998. | View Record |
Johannsen, Robert W. "Stephen A. Douglas and the South." Journal of Southern History 33, no. 1 (February 1967): 26-50. | View Record |
Johannsen, Robert W. "Stephen A. Douglas, ‘Harper's Magazine,’ and Popular Sovereignty." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 45, no. 4 (March 1959): 606-631. | View Record |
Johannsen, Robert W. "The Lincoln-Douglas Campaign of 1858: Background and Perspective." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 73, no. 4 (1980): 242-262. | View Record |
Kelleghan, Thomas C. "Was there an ‘Eighth Debate’?" Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 56, no. 1 (1963): 74-77. | View Record |
Krug, Mark M. "Lyman Trumbull and the Real Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 57, no. 4 (1964): 380-396. | View Record |
Kyff, Robert S. "Opinions on Current Reading: The Great Emancipator Held some Racist Views." Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (June 30, 1996): 108. | View Record |
Lehrman, Lewis E. Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2008. | View Record |
Lincoln, Abraham, and Stephen Arnold Douglas. Created Equal? The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. Edited by Paul M. Angle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. | View Record |
Lincoln, Abraham, and Stephen Arnold Douglas. Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, in the Celebrated Campaign of 1858, in Illinois : Including the Preceding Speeches of each, at Chicago, Springfield, etc. : Also, the Two Great Speeches of Mr. Lincoln in Ohio, in 1859, as Carefully Prepared by the Reporters of each Party, and Published at the Times of their Delivery. 3rd ed. Columbus, OH: Follett, Foster and Co., 1860. | View Record |
Lincoln, Abraham, and Stephen Arnold Douglas. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. Edited by Robert Walter Johannsen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. | View Record |
Lincoln, Abraham, and Stephen Arnold Douglas. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text. Edited and with an introduction by Harold Holzer. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. | View Record |
Lincoln, Abraham. Lincoln: His Words and His World. Edited by Robert L. Polley. Waukesha, WI: Country Beautiful Foundation for Hawthorn Books, 1965. | View Record |
Lincoln, Abraham. Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858: Speeches, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The Library of America, Vol. 45. Edited by Don Edward Fehrenbacher. New York: Literary Classics of the United States/Viking Press, 1989. | View Record |
Magdol, Edward. "Owen Lovejoy's Role in the Campaign of 1858." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 51 (1958): 403-416. | View Record |
Mitgang, Herbert. "1858 Debates: No Makeup, No Moderator." New York Times. October 8, 1992. | View Record |
Montgomery, Horace. "A Georgia Precedent for the Freeport Question." Journal of Southern History 10, no. 2 (1944): 200-207. | View Record |
Morris, Roy. The Long Pursuit: Abraham Lincoln's Thirty-Year Struggle with Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America. New York: Smithsonian Books, 2008. | View Record |
Muelder, Owen W. "Freedom Depot." Illinois Heritage 9, no. 3 (2006): 9-11. | View Record |
Pierce, Alan. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Edina, MN: ABDO Publishers, 2005. | View Record |
Porterfield, Jason. The Lincoln-Douglas Senatorial Debates of 1858: A Primary Source Investigation. New York: Rosen Central Primary Sources, 2005. | View Record |
Reilly, Tom. "Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 Forced New Role on the Press." Journalism Quarterly 56, no. 4 (1979): 734-743, 752. | View Record |
Sigelschiffer, Saul. The American Conscience: The Drama of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Pittsburgh: Horizon Press, 1973. | View Record |
Simon, John Y. "Union County in 1858 and the Lincoln-Douglas Debate." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 62, no. 3 (1969): 267-292. | View Record |
Staz, Ronald N. "African Slave Trade and Lincoln's Campaign of 1858." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 65, no. 3 (1972): 269-279. | View Record |
Stevenson, James A. "Lincoln vs. Douglas Over the Republican Ideal." American Studies 35, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 63-89. | View Record |
Stewart, Charles J. “The People and the Lincoln-Douglas Campaign of 1858.” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 65 (October 1967): 284-293. | View Record |
Terrill, Robert E., and David Zarefsky. "Consistency and Change in the Rhetoric of Stephen A. Douglas." Southern Communication Journal 62, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 179. | View Record |
Thibodeaux, Annette B. "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates." Library Media Connection 23, no. 7 (April/May 2005): 89. | View Record |
Tullai, Martin D. "Debates Changed Country's Destiny." Washington Times, October 10, 1992. | View Record |
Weaver, Richard M. "NR Reader: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates." National Review 42, no. 21 (November 5, 1990): 134. | View Record |
Wilson, Douglas L. "The Unfinished Text of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 15, no. 1 (1994): 70-84. | View Record |
Zarefsky, David. "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates Revisited: The Evolution of Public Argument." Quarterly Journal of Speech 72, no. 2 (1986): 162-184. | View Record |
Zarefsky, David. Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. | View Record |