Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America

This book is an informative account of the debates and the caliber of politics for that time.

The electorial process was as flawed then as it is now. Lincoln had the popular vote however did not win the election.

However the debates exposed Lincoln to the whole country and set the stage for his later success in the 1860 Presidential Elections.

James Squires, St Johns, Newfoundland, 09-10-08

I'll endorse compliments already expressed and confine new praise to the three features of this book that impressed me most.

First, this book does a terrific job of placing the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates within the contexts of their separate campaigns. It reminds us that Lincoln and Douglas were not just campaigning against each other, but also against the Democratic Administration of President James Buchanan (another candidate for worst president ever). Both had to raise money, stage rallies, attract crowds, and rely on allies to publicly declare that they had soundly defeated their opponent.

Second, Guelzo shows in detail how Lincoln had to work within the newly formed Republican Party, and maneuver between its powers in Chicago, its national leaders (several of whom became Lincoln's rivals), and his personal advisers, making a series of unpleasant choices between them. The Chicago party leaders arranged for the debates and did their best to control what Lincoln said and didn't say. Lincoln resisted them at his own risk.

Third, the book is very well written, thoroughly documented, and carefully focused. It reveals in chapter after chapter how party politics have worked in Illinois and in the United States, how newspapers functioned as their tools, what motives (including white supremacy) fueled anti-slavery voters, and what Lincoln learned from one debate to the next. Lincolnophiles will much appreciate the book for its recognitions of Lincoln's blunders, regrets, recoveries, and growing political skills.

This is an almost day by day account of how the 1858 campaign for US Senator from Illinois was conducted btween Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. The author does a good job of putting you in the times and explaining the issues of the day. It is particularly strong in dealing with the pracical objections to Douglas' notion of popular soverignity in light of the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case.

The tight focus on the debates themselves was probably a tactical error on the author's part. They only had seven face-to-face debates and the book focuses entirely on them, with the result that by the 3rd or 4th debate, the events and the format of the book are repetitious.

Ironically, the author himself points out that it was the campaign,not just the debates that launched Lincoln toward the presidency, but the book itself only deals with the debates.

This book offers the debates in the context of the Illinois senatorial campaign of which they are a part. Guelzo narrates the events, analysing and explaining the strategy and tactics of both sides. The Republicans thought that they could upset Douglas, who was crippled in a number of ways.

President Buchanan had cut off Douglas's support from the normal party organization because Douglas had failed to back Buchanan's attempt to railroad the obviously fraudulent Lecompton constitution (which would have admitted Kansas to the Union as a slave state) through Congress. Buchanan cut off Douglas's patronage and largely replaced the Douglas men holding patronage jobs in Illinois (and elsewhere), leaving Douglas with campaign finance and organization problems.

Douglas was also under pressure because his opposition to Lecompton had cost him much of his support in the South and thus jeopardized his ambitions for the presidency in 1860. Douglas knew that Southerners would look carefully at his campaign positions in 1858, weighing them for acceptability to the South.

And those positions would be taken in the wake of the recently decided Dred Scott decision in which the U. S. Supreme Court stated that no territorial government could constitutionally limit slavery in the territory. There seemed to be no reason why this ruling would not logically also apply to the states, to the alarm of free states in the North. Dred Scott thus imperiled Douglas's cherished doctrine of popular sovreignty and further hampered his presidential ambitions by compromising him in both North and South.

Lincoln's campaign had its own problems. The Republicans were not only a new party but a clear minority in Illinois. The Democrats controlled the state legislature, and U. S. senators were then elected by the legislatures and not by direct popular vote. In 1858 Lincoln was a relatively little known figure outside party circles even in Illinois, and the election was in essence a series of contests to elect Republican legislators who would then vote in the legislature to elect Lincoln to the U. S. Senate. Lincoln was also aware that Douglas was coyly flirting with the national Republican party, where some of the senior leaders hoped to steal Douglas from the Democrats and possibly make him the party's presidential nominee in 1860. Lincoln felt that bringing Douglas to the party would hopelessly compromise the Republicans's opposition to the expansion of slavery, a founding principle of the party. He seems to have adjusted his strategy deliberately in order to prevent this from happening.

Guelzo relates the ins and outs of the campaign superbly. The story shows the brilliance of Abraham Lincoln as a practicing politician. People could and did argue who had won a particular debate, but overall Lincoln (though he narrowly lost the election) tied Douglas into knots. He forced Douglas to take positions that hurt him not only in Illinois but nationally, both North and South. As Guelzo makes clear, Lincoln's tactics probably destroyed any realistic hopes Douglas had for the presidency and thus all but destroyed him as a major national figure.

Amazingly it is impossible not to feel some sympathy for Douglas, who had to soldier on while watching his national ambitions wrecked by the unexpectedly capable Lincoln. Douglas was a prominent and successful speaker and politician and, though arrogant and pompous, was far from stupid. He had to realize what was happening. Certainly as the debates and the campaign went on, Douglas's performances became increasingly uneven and his drinking increased markedly. Many thought that Douglas was clearly alcohol impaired at a number of his later campaign speeches and at the late debates. Guelzo, indeed, seems to think that Douglas (who died in 1861) in part drank himself to death and that the process began here.

Lincoln fared differently, of course. He was first brought to national prominence by the debates, which were reported thoughout Illinois (with verbatim transcripts) and picked up by the national press of the day and publicized to intense interest throughout the country. This is one of the factors that led to the Cooper Union speech that many feel made Lincoln the Republican nominee in 1860.

My one problem with the book is that I am not sure that the debates quite live up to the subtitle of the book. First, it is very difficult to believe that Douglas, a consummate congressional politician rather than a profound thinker, had systematically created a philosophic position. It seems more likely that he formulated a simple formula (popular sovreignty) that would have at least superficial appeal both to North and South, be successful in Congress and not coincidently promote Douglas's own career and ambitions. He never explained the doctrine fully and clearly but kept it vague and tried to make it all things to all men. Douglas had great trouble responding to logical, constitutional and philosophic challenges such as those presented by Lincoln and by the U. S. Supreme Court through the Dred Scott case.

More important, though, is the fact that both Lincoln's and Douglas's positions had been around for a long time. Lincoln's view was that the laws of a free republic must ultimately be linked to basic, universal and overriding moral principles. This seems to be a variant of natural law theory, a long tradition in legal philosophy. Assuming that Douglas did have a coherent philosophic position, it was that any law made by a majority of the people through their representatives and by methods in accordance with due process was a proper law and beyond legal or moral challenge. This too is a long-standing theory. Indeed the Founders of 1789 were sufficiently aware of such ideas that they struggled to make the nascent Constitution proof against the "tyranny of the majority."

So the debates did not make new revelations. Guelzo is correct, I think, in his belief that the two positions constitute opposite ends of the spectrum and have been more or less in tension in the polity of the U. S. from the start to the present. But they were not first defined in the 1858 debates. Of course authors frequently do not determine the titles to their books, which are frequently titled by publishers in ways that will (they hope) get the book attention from potential reviewers and buyers. However this may be, the subtitle seems to me to overstate the case. The book itself is a wonderful evocation of the time and place and some of its great personalities in riveting action.

I'm really enjoying this book. I have read quite a bit about the debates and this text has several pieces on information I have not read before.