The Debates

The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of seven joint discussions between Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat, held during the summer and fall of 1858 in Illinois. Lincoln and Douglas had been debating each other for more than twenty years before their famous contest for the U.S. Senate in 1858. They were longtime rivals with contrasting styles and sharp differences in philosophy. But from the beginning almost everyone realized the 1858 debates would be historic.

Images courtesy of the Gilder Lehrman Collection (Lincoln), the Library of Congress (Douglas) and Dickinson College (map), with special thanks to Russell Toris and John Osborne.