Lincoln's Life as Depicted in the Museum Exhibits (continued)

Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, This photograph was taken during his debates with Lincoln in 1858.
(Reproduced from photograph by Mathew B. Brady, New York City. Courtesy of the National Archives, Washington, D. C.)

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which reopened the issue of admitting slavery into the territories, aroused Lincoln to a new interest in politics. On October 16, 1854, an Peoria, Ill., Lincoln delivered the first of his great speeches on slavery. In reply to a speech by Stephen A. Douglas, the sponsor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln reviewed the history of slavery and argued against its extension.

In accepting the Republican nomination for United States Senator in 1858, Lincoln renewed his offensive against slavery in his famous "House Divided Speech." Douglas accepted Lincoln's challenge to argue the great issue of the day in a series of seven debates. As a result of these debates, Lincoln emerged from a somewhat obscure politician to a figure of national importance, even though he lost the subsequent senatorial election in the State Legislature to Douglas. His prestige was further enhanced by a masterful address on the slavery question which he delivered before a capacity audience of important citizens at the Cooper Union in New York on February 27, 1860. This speech was one of the greatest of Lincoln's career and so impressed the North that party leaders now considered him as a possible Presidential candidate.