ILLINOIS

STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

EDMUND JANES JAMES, Chairman MCKENDREE HYPES CHAMBERLIN, Vice-President GEORGE NELSON BLACK, Secretary

PREFACE

A new edition of the speeches made by Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in the set debate during the Illinois senatorial canvass of 1858 would seem a worthy and appropriate part of the general commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of that event. While the campaign was local in its inception, it became national in its significance and in its results. The issues as brought out in the debate, especially in the speech of Douglas at Freeport, widened, if they did not open, the breach between him and the southern Democrats, made a split in the convention of 1860 a foregone conclusion, and thereby paved the way for Republican success and the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. The debate also marked the high-tide of the "stump" method of campaigning; it furnishes, through the unusual space given to it in newspaper reports, an opportunity to study this unique phenomenon of frontier life; while the increasing number of printing presses, the extension of the mail routes, and consequent change in campaign methods, lend to this canvass the melancholy interest of a passing show. The speeches themselves are of a high order of debate, and of unusual import; those of Douglas set forth his untenable position and his impossible theory in the clearest terms; those of Lincoln state the arguments of the new Republican party as they had not been outlined before; and the combined effect of the whole is a survey of the political aspect of the day not to be found elsewhere..

Many editions of the debates have been printed, beginning with that of 1860; a few have included speeches made by each participant, both before and after the set debates;

some have added explanatory footnotes; but none have attempted to reproduce the local color from the press of the day. In this edition an effort is made by newspaper extracts and by reminiscences to give a picture of the crude though virile setting in this contest of two men so evenly matched in polemical power, yet so unlike in temperament and in physical appearance. Only those speeches are here reprinted which were delivered at the seven set meetings constituting in reality the Great Debate. The gist of the prior speeches is woven into the introduction.

The Columbus, Ohio, edition of 1860 is followed in this text, but the speeches as there reprinted have been compared with the originals-those of Lincoln with the files of the Chicago Press and Tribune, and those of Douglas with the Chicago Times-and the changes which the Columbus edition made in the official reports are here shown in the footnotes; and there has been also incorporated in the text the numerous interruptions of the speeches by the audiences. In the present edition, the largest type indicates the editor's explanatory comments; the next largest shows quotations, the source being indicated at the head; and the smallest size of type denotes quoted matter within a quotation.

The descriptions and comments reprinted from the newspapers of the day are by no means exhaustive; fully one-half the matter originally collected was rejected for lack of space; but much of it was immaterial, being made up of denunciation and attempts to belittle the other side, predictions of victory, and general comment, which threw no light on the events of the debate. The amount of reminiscential matter was reduced by the same test. Such illustrations were selected as lent themselves to illuminating the subject-matter. In collecting the extracts and the illustrations, the editor has visited many places, has searched