Ottawa debate: First step toward Lincoln presidency

By Stephen Anderson

The series of debates 150 years ago that thrust Abraham Lincoln into the realm of national politics excited Illinoisans who were split or ambivalent on issues related to the spread of slavery into new states.

That was the key issue in the campaign of Lincoln and Stephen Douglas for the U.S. Senate.

"Throngs such as had never been known before in the history of the United States rushed to hear them," Dale Carnegie wrote in his 1932 book, "The Unknown Lincoln."

Because halls at the debate sites could not contain all the people who wanted to hear Lincoln and Douglas, the events were held outside and were covered by newspaper reporters.

"The speakers soon had a nation for their audience," Carnegie relates. "Two years later, Lincoln was in the White House."

In Ottawa, where the series ensued in Washington Square on Aug. 21, 1858, roads were packed with buggies and wagons, and a special 17-car train brought many more enthusiasts to the growing audience.

Carnegie describes Douglas being "driven through the streets in a fine carriage drawn by six white horses." Supporters of Lincoln, showing contempt, brought him into town "on a decrepit old hay-rack drawn by a team of white mules."

On that hot, dry afternoon, local bands paraded, soldiers marched, quacks sold cure-alls, jugglers performed, beggars and prostitutes sought compensation.

Carl Sandburg reports, in his "Prairie Years," that Lincoln observed, "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it."

He professed in his speech that social and political equality between the white and black races was "but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words," and he had no intention of interfering with slavery where it existed.

Notwithstanding that viewpoint, he said, "there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Although perhaps not equal in many respects, Lincoln insisted that "in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Scribes reported "loud cheers" and "great applause" after these statements.

Zeroing in on his fundamental differences with Douglas, Lincoln charged him with "blowing out the moral lights around us" by inviting "any people willing to have slavery, to establish it."

And when Douglas says he doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or down, "he is in my judgment penetrating the human soul and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty in this American people." (Enthusiastic and continued applause.)

Six more campaign debates followed: Aug. 27 in Freeport, Sept. 15 in Jonesboro, Sept. 18 in Charleston, Oct. 7 in Galesburg, Oct. 13 in Quincy, and Oct. 15 in Alton.

In the election that followed on Nov. 2, Lincoln received a popular majority of 4,085 votes. But on Jan. 5, 1859, a gerrymandered legislature re-elected Douglas, 54 votes to 46.

The debates had made Lincoln a national figure, however, and he would square off again with Douglas in the 1860 presidential election.

Lincoln would be elected this time, on Nov. 6, and Douglas, his main adversary, would die seven months later.

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