Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America

Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined AmericaAs America renews its public debate on the role of race in our democracy in this election year, this book provides a compelling and comprehensive portrait of how Lincoln helped our country come to grips with the fundamental question of the immorality of slavery. The result was the first civic realignment in the nation’s political history. Just as the Lincoln/Douglas debates determined the primacy of the federal government in matters of civil rights, and FDR’s victory almost 75 years later confirmed the central role the federal government must play in our economic life, the 2008 election is due to produce our third civic realignment with the federal government assuming even more of a central role in the every day lives of Americans.

A detailed, well written and easy to read description of the debates. It is easy to see from Lincoln’s speeches that it still applies to day to different issues and the author points this out in his epilogue. I highly recommend this book.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates in 1858 are largely remembered today because they brought an obscure Illinois lawyer and politician, Abraham Lincoln, to national prominence. Yet as this book demonstrates they also illuminate the confused and often contradictory U.S. attitudes towards slavery and race in the turbulent pre-Civil War years.

The Republican Party of the 1850’s was formed from the imploding Whig Party and disaffected members of the then Democratic Party around a common theme that slavery, the peculiar institution of the South should be contained within the bounds set by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This not surprising in that the compromise was the work of Whig Henry Clay whose memory was still revered by many Whigs, including Lincoln. Under this compromise Missouri entered the U.S. as a slave state, but slavery would be excluded from all portions of the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase above latitude 36 30. Now the Republican Party including Lincoln made it clear repeatedly that they were not abolitionists. They did not want to abolish slavery where it already existed, but only to contain its expansion. They feared being overwhelmed in congress by slave holding states. Conversely, by the 1850’s the slave holding states begin to fear that as the territory of purchase started to develop into states, they would be overwhelmed in the congress by non-slave states and slavery itself would be at risk.

The Democratic Party of the time not exactly a pro-slavery party, but it was considerably less adamant than the republicans in wanting to contain the growth of slavery. It was seen by most as the party most sympathetic to the slave holding states of the south. Stephan A. Douglas arguably the most prominent member of the party hoped to maintain both party unity and to give the Democrats something like parity with burgeoning Republican Party. He therefore successfully overthrew the Missouri Compromise in favor of allowing each state to determine the status of slavery in that state. This `popular sovereignty’ bill infuriated the Republicans and as it turned out failed to satisfy the slave holders. It was this bill more than anything else that persuaded Lincoln to embark on a series of debates with Douglas.

The Debates and their back ground make for some fine reading. Yet it is discouraging to read how nobody including Lincoln really considered the African-American, either free or slave, to be equal to what was called the `white man’. Not even the majority of the abolitionists were willing to treat them as equals. Fredrick Douglass who was not only the equal of many white men, but superior to most was virtually ignored, insulted, or at best treated as an aberration. This is the unpleasant part of what is a very good book.