Abraham Lincoln and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Making of a President

*Profiles the life and presidency of Abraham Lincoln with a special focus on his debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858.

*Explains the central issues of the 1850s, including the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott Decision,

*Includes pictures of Lincoln and other important people, places, and events in his life. . 

*Includes a Bibliography for further reading.

*Includes a Table of Contents.


“This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.” – Abraham Lincoln


Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) is one of the most famous Americans in history and one of the country’s most revered presidents. Schoolchildren can recite the life story of Lincoln, the “Westerner” who educated himself and became a self made man, rising from lawyer to leader of the new Republican Party before becoming the 16th President of the United States. Lincoln successfully navigated the Union through the Civil War but didn’t live to witness his crowning achievement, becoming the first president assassinated when he was shot at Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. 


In the generation after the Civil War, Lincoln became an American deity and one of the most written about men in history. With such a sterling reputation, even historians hesitate to write a critical word; in Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin casts Lincoln as an almost superhuman puppet master in control of his Cabinet’s political machinations and the war’s direction, juggling the balancing act flawlessly. As a result, Lincoln the man is far less known than Lincoln the myth. 


Lincoln's springboard to the presidency came in the form of the most famous debates in American history. Throughout the Fall of 1858, U.S. Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas participated in seven three-hour debates throughout Illinois. This unprecedented method of campaigning drew national attention, one that is still often idealized even today among those who feel politics is too bitterly partisan. 


The main theme of the debates was the topic being discussed across the nation: slavery. When Congress created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska in 1854, it allowed the citizens of those territories to vote whether the new states would be free states or slave states. This idea of allowing the citizens to vote was known as “popular sovereignty”, and it was championed by the “Little Giant”, Stephen Douglas. Casting himself as a moderate, Douglas believed popular sovereignty would not divide the nation, and thinking further ahead he believed slavery could not thrive in the Western territories because the land there was inhospitable to slave labor anyway. 


Abraham Lincoln and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates chronicles the life of the 16th president and profiles the debates that made him a national celebrity and ultimately set him on the path to the presidency. This book also discusses lesser-known facts about Lincoln while tracking his monumental presidency, and his legacy. Along with pictures of Lincoln and other important people and events in his life, you will learn about Lincoln and his debates with the “Little Giant” like you never have before.