Lincoln- Douglas Debates: Who Won?
For my third and last writing assignment for History 1700-062 I will be discussing the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. The way that I will be structuring my paper is. I will give an overview of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. My second paragraph will talk about Lincoln’s views and what he did well. My third paragraph will be the same as my second paragraph only this time with Douglas instead of Lincoln. I will then conclude my paper by choosing who I believe won the several debates and why.
Taking place during a time where our country was moving closer and closer to disunion. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of several debates between two politicians in Illinois, 1858 from August 21 to October 15. The debates were for an open seat in the Senate. Abraham Lincoln was the Republican nominee, and Stephen Douglas was the Democratic nominee. It all began when Lincoln decided to challenge Douglas to a “war of ideas” (History.org, 2016), Douglas accepted this challenge.
Flocks of spectators came to watch the several debates that took place all across Illinois. During these debates there was a lot of shouting, cheers, and laughter from these crowds which was very uncommon during political debates. According to history.org “The debates attracted tens of thousands of voters and newspaper reporters from across the nation.” One of the main and most important topics discussed was that of slavery. Douglas debated that popular sovereignty gave citizens of a territory the right to permit or prohibit slavery. Lincoln countered with the ruling of Dredd Scott which decreed citizens of a territory did not have this kind of power. Lincoln eventually lost and Douglas ended up winning the Senate seat.
Lincoln and Douglas’ views contrasted each other significantly. They were basically polar opposites of each other. Lincoln believed that slaves were “entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence” and they deserve “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Forner, 2012 pg. 393). Lincoln often repeated the phrase “a house divided could not stand” (Waltercoffee, 2012). He believed that if the nation was half slaves and half free slavery would eventually spread everywhere, even in the North. This is not only because it had been declared unconstitutional (Dredd Scott), but also because free and slave states have such different interests it would eventually fall apart. While Lincoln morally opposed slavery he also opposed the spread of slavery. During one of the debates Lincoln brought up the founding fathers saying “when this government was first established it was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new territories of the United States” (Forner, 2012 pg. 392). Lincoln brought up very good ideas, he took a moral stance on slavery, and countered Douglas’ popular sovereignty with the Dredd Scott decision.
In Douglas’ view he never comes right out and says that he is in favor of slavery, in fact he is against slavery. Though the debates he doesn’t let his stance be shown, he simply believes that slavery should be able to grow if that is what the people wanted. Douglas viewed the country being able to endure half slave, and half free because it had been that way since the founding fathers. He is basically saying that we shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. Douglas also believes that the government does not have the right to interfere with slaves because of popular sovereignty, which gives the state the authority to regulate slaves and their masters. Ultimately Douglas believes that it is up to the states and the citizens of that state. He simply wants state to be able to do whatever they please. What Douglas did well in the debates was he would repeat things that Lincoln would say and would counter them with good arguments. Douglas played it safe and didn’t give his own stance on the matters. He simply argued for popular sovereignty and for states to be able to do as they please.
In conclusion I believe that in the short scope, or 1858 Douglas won. This is simply because he won the senate seat, not take a personal stance on the matter of slavery, and was able to counter Lincoln’s views. However, when looking at the large scope, or 2016 Lincoln won. Lincoln was right about the nation breaking apart because of contrasting views between the north and south. The south seceded and ended up starting the civil war. Lincoln also was able to abolish slavery by signing the 13 amendment. Lincoln began a civils rights movement that has had an everlasting effects on this country.
Through the analysis of the debates, the audience can have a better understanding of 19th Century slavery debates. They can find a general pattern of debating techniques that are used today. Through reading this the audience may make a more informed a political choice by comparing and contrasting different views. As an undergraduate skills were developed while analyzing parts of the debate. I am now better able to present two sides to an argument and then form an opinion from research.
Bibliography
Foner, E. (2012). Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York: W.W. Norton.
WalterCoffey (2012) The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. https://waltercoffey.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/the-lincoln-douglas-debates/
Ushistory.org (2016) The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. http://www.ushistory.org/us/32b.asp
Purdue (2016), How The Lincoln-Douglas debates came to be, and why they are relevant in today's political world.
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/history/course/debate/lincolndouglas/index.html
Wikipedia (2016) Lincoln-Douglas debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates
Reflection
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." -Robert Kennedy (Brainyquotes, 2016)
I have always loved history, it has always fascinated me. For me real life stories are the best kind of stories, they are intriguing and you can learn a lot from them. While in History 1700-062 we didn't primarily focus on history I still enjoyed every bit of the class. The class helped me improve my writing as well as giving me skills that I can implement when furthering my education. A requirement for this class was to post a signature writing assignment of our choosing on our E-Portfolio's. For my signature assignment I chose our third writing assignment which was based upon the Lincoln-Douglas debates and who we believe won them. It was a challenging yet interesting paper to write.
What I really liked about writing this paper was how I was able to format it. I decided to first talk about the debates and give a little background information to those who may have no idea what the Lincoln-Douglas Debates were. I then broke down my second and third paragraph into focusing on first Lincoln and than Douglas. I then tied it up by sharing who I believe won the debates. The structure I thought made it easier to read opposed to starting off by telling the audience who I believe won and backing it up with evidence that shared my views. The way I set it up was t to first give a non-biased view on both sides and then allowing myself to pick a side with what evidence I provided. I sort of left it open for others to form their own opinion from the information I gave about both Lincoln and Douglas. I believe this to be the ultimate strength of this paper.
The biggest weakness that I believe this paper had was the fact that I was restrained to 1000 words. I understand the fact that you don't want to go overboard with what you are writing about, that you want to make it short and to the point. However i believe that more information wouldn't have hurt this paper. I fully believe it might have made it a little bit better. It was so hard to just choose some views of both candidates as well as giving very little background knowledge to this paper. The topic of who won these debates could've made at least a four to five page paper easily. Trying to cram everything in, but also providing information for this piece was tricky. Another weakness I believe this paper has is that I knew hardly anything about this topic before the paper. I had to read a lot of papers online to get a better understanding to these debates and what effects they had going forward into the future. Knowing more before hand would have benefited the process surely.
When I first started this class I wanted to develop the skill of not taking a stance on something before I saw both sides to the story. I also wanted to learn critical thinking skills that I believed would help me in my professional career after I was finished with my schooling. Going into this class I honestly expected to just learn about history and to take tests based upon history. I was presently surprised with things that I learned such as logical reasoning, and critical thinking. These are skills that I can implement into all aspects of my life, be that professionally, academically, or personally. I never would have thought that in History we would focus more on those skills that I mentioned than actual history itself. I am definitely glad we did however. Learning how to look at something without a previous bias, and then forming a reasonable and logical conclusion is something that I wanted to improve before the class started. I am really happy to say that I was able to learn just that. I also wasn't expecting to improve my writing but with Mr. Stone "encouraging" us to use the writing lab I can say I did just that. The writing lab is a great place to go to get extra advice, and another set of eyeballs that aren't your own that can give constructive criticism to your paper. I definitely will be using it in the future.
In conclusion I will benefit greatly from taking History 1700-062 I will be able to become a better student through the use of skills such as critical thinking and logical reasoning. It will allow me to research topics and then I will be informed enough to where I feel that I can make a smart opinion. Not only will this help me with writing, but I can also use this in my personal life with a wide arrange of things such as becoming an informed voter. Eventually after school I will also use this to get on to a personal level with my clients and form a good connection with those I work with. I am very happy with my decision to take this class, it has helped me in ways that I did not foresee. It was very insightful and I overall had a wonderful time in class.
Bibliography
Brainyquotes (2016) Robert Kennedy quotes. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertkenn135396.html
I have always loved history, it has always fascinated me. For me real life stories are the best kind of stories, they are intriguing and you can learn a lot from them. While in History 1700-062 we didn't primarily focus on history I still enjoyed every bit of the class. The class helped me improve my writing as well as giving me skills that I can implement when furthering my education. A requirement for this class was to post a signature writing assignment of our choosing on our E-Portfolio's. For my signature assignment I chose our third writing assignment which was based upon the Lincoln-Douglas debates and who we believe won them. It was a challenging yet interesting paper to write.
What I really liked about writing this paper was how I was able to format it. I decided to first talk about the debates and give a little background information to those who may have no idea what the Lincoln-Douglas Debates were. I then broke down my second and third paragraph into focusing on first Lincoln and than Douglas. I then tied it up by sharing who I believe won the debates. The structure I thought made it easier to read opposed to starting off by telling the audience who I believe won and backing it up with evidence that shared my views. The way I set it up was t to first give a non-biased view on both sides and then allowing myself to pick a side with what evidence I provided. I sort of left it open for others to form their own opinion from the information I gave about both Lincoln and Douglas. I believe this to be the ultimate strength of this paper.
The biggest weakness that I believe this paper had was the fact that I was restrained to 1000 words. I understand the fact that you don't want to go overboard with what you are writing about, that you want to make it short and to the point. However i believe that more information wouldn't have hurt this paper. I fully believe it might have made it a little bit better. It was so hard to just choose some views of both candidates as well as giving very little background knowledge to this paper. The topic of who won these debates could've made at least a four to five page paper easily. Trying to cram everything in, but also providing information for this piece was tricky. Another weakness I believe this paper has is that I knew hardly anything about this topic before the paper. I had to read a lot of papers online to get a better understanding to these debates and what effects they had going forward into the future. Knowing more before hand would have benefited the process surely.
When I first started this class I wanted to develop the skill of not taking a stance on something before I saw both sides to the story. I also wanted to learn critical thinking skills that I believed would help me in my professional career after I was finished with my schooling. Going into this class I honestly expected to just learn about history and to take tests based upon history. I was presently surprised with things that I learned such as logical reasoning, and critical thinking. These are skills that I can implement into all aspects of my life, be that professionally, academically, or personally. I never would have thought that in History we would focus more on those skills that I mentioned than actual history itself. I am definitely glad we did however. Learning how to look at something without a previous bias, and then forming a reasonable and logical conclusion is something that I wanted to improve before the class started. I am really happy to say that I was able to learn just that. I also wasn't expecting to improve my writing but with Mr. Stone "encouraging" us to use the writing lab I can say I did just that. The writing lab is a great place to go to get extra advice, and another set of eyeballs that aren't your own that can give constructive criticism to your paper. I definitely will be using it in the future.
In conclusion I will benefit greatly from taking History 1700-062 I will be able to become a better student through the use of skills such as critical thinking and logical reasoning. It will allow me to research topics and then I will be informed enough to where I feel that I can make a smart opinion. Not only will this help me with writing, but I can also use this in my personal life with a wide arrange of things such as becoming an informed voter. Eventually after school I will also use this to get on to a personal level with my clients and form a good connection with those I work with. I am very happy with my decision to take this class, it has helped me in ways that I did not foresee. It was very insightful and I overall had a wonderful time in class.
Bibliography
Brainyquotes (2016) Robert Kennedy quotes. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertkenn135396.html