William Grimes: Separating the Mythology From the Raw Politics of a Senate Campaign
One hundred and fifty years on, the Lincoln-Douglas debates enjoy the dubious status of myth. The specific circumstances and local passions that shaped them have long been forgotten, and subsequent events — the rise of Lincoln as a towering national figure and the Civil War — make it almost mandatory to read the debates as an ominous prologue or an intellectual dress rehearsal for national tragedy.
In his searching and illuminating “Lincoln and Douglas” the eminent Lincoln historian Allen C. Guelzo does the great service of bringing the debates back down to earth, placing them in the context of a brutal four-month senatorial campaign. Yes, important principles were involved in the arguments between the Democratic incumbent, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, and his upstart Republican rival, Abraham Lincoln. But raw politics shaped their words in the summer and fall of 1858, as the two men calculated, pandered, exploited each other’s weaknesses and grabbed for votes in an increasingly desperate battle for a seat in the Senate.
Only by looking at the electoral politics in Illinois, Mr. Guelzo argues, can we hope to understand the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates, which took place in different locations before audiences with correspondingly different opinions, concerns and political allegiances. Neither candidate was entirely his own master, either. Party grandees exercised their own potent influence, feeding questions to the two men, criticizing their performances and coaching from the sidelines.
The debates, Mr. Guelzo repeatedly emphasizes, were only part of an often dirty political campaign, not a series of Socratic dialogues. “Far more Illinoisans heard Lincoln and Douglas on courthouse steps, from railroad platforms, from hastily hammered-together stands at country fairs and from the flatbeds of wagons than heard them in face-to-face debate,” he writes.
Following the two men from town to town on their itinerary, Mr. Guelzo reconstructs the political challenges presented in different parts of Illinois. The state divided into three ideological belts, the solidly Democratic South separated from the solidly Republican North by a fat central “Whig belt” of voters opposed to slavery but committed to white supremacy. In this contested middle ground, both candidates trimmed and waffled, clawing for advantage and votes....
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In his searching and illuminating “Lincoln and Douglas” the eminent Lincoln historian Allen C. Guelzo does the great service of bringing the debates back down to earth, placing them in the context of a brutal four-month senatorial campaign. Yes, important principles were involved in the arguments between the Democratic incumbent, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, and his upstart Republican rival, Abraham Lincoln. But raw politics shaped their words in the summer and fall of 1858, as the two men calculated, pandered, exploited each other’s weaknesses and grabbed for votes in an increasingly desperate battle for a seat in the Senate.
Only by looking at the electoral politics in Illinois, Mr. Guelzo argues, can we hope to understand the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates, which took place in different locations before audiences with correspondingly different opinions, concerns and political allegiances. Neither candidate was entirely his own master, either. Party grandees exercised their own potent influence, feeding questions to the two men, criticizing their performances and coaching from the sidelines.
The debates, Mr. Guelzo repeatedly emphasizes, were only part of an often dirty political campaign, not a series of Socratic dialogues. “Far more Illinoisans heard Lincoln and Douglas on courthouse steps, from railroad platforms, from hastily hammered-together stands at country fairs and from the flatbeds of wagons than heard them in face-to-face debate,” he writes.
Following the two men from town to town on their itinerary, Mr. Guelzo reconstructs the political challenges presented in different parts of Illinois. The state divided into three ideological belts, the solidly Democratic South separated from the solidly Republican North by a fat central “Whig belt” of voters opposed to slavery but committed to white supremacy. In this contested middle ground, both candidates trimmed and waffled, clawing for advantage and votes....