150 years ago today: First Lincoln-Douglas Debate

On August 21, 1858, the first of the seven Lincoln-Douglas Debates took place in Ottawa, Illinois. It's of course the first stop for the Lincoln & Douglas Reunion Tour, and there will be a festival in Ottawa this weekend to mark the sesquicentennial.

Much of the activity will be centered in a park just outside of downtown Ottawa.

I try to keep contemporary politics out of my history posts, but since the Associated Press chose to bring up Barack Obama in its article about the anniversary, I have no choice but to follow suit.

Now, as another U.S. senator from Illinois admired for his oratorical polish — Barack Obama — shoots for the presidency, Illinois is marking Lincoln's rise to the national stage with a sesquicentennial commemoration of the David-and-Goliath showdowns. The festivities will take Lincoln and Douglas re-enactors to each debate site starting this month, with storytellers, parades, and dancing at period balls.

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Slavery was the focus of the debates at Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy and Alton. But underlying that incendiary theme was the ultimate question of democracy's purpose — whether it's about majority rule or right and wrong, said Allen Guelzo of Gettysburg College, author of Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America.

"Americans regard democracy as something more transcendent, something more sacred than just counting noses," Guelzo said. "Americans at base want to know that their politics is about what is right. And if a majority wants to do what is wrong, people just don't roll over."
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And nearly 150 years later, a black man would announce his run for presidency in Springfield on the steps of the Capitol where Lincoln once served. Obama's nomination is "breathtakingly stupendous," Guelzo said, considering the slow pace of worldwide change in race relations over the centuries.

I wonder who the professor is voting for?

While I'm pleased someone running for president isn't automatically dismissed as a serious presidential candidate because of race, these Obama-Lincoln comparisons need to stop.

I have to paraphrase it, because I can't find the exact verbiage online, but National Review's print edition said something along these lines: A Lincoln-Obama comparision is absurd. Lincoln's defeat in 1858 was more meaningful than Obama's US Senate victory in 2004. Lincoln lost to Douglas--the leading Democrat of his time. They participated in debates that are still studied today. Obama rolled over Alan Keyes.

Lincoln didn't cloud himself in secrecy as Obama does. And he didn't surround himself with characters such as Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, and Emil Jones.

As for the upcoming 2008 presidential debates, in format they are much different than the free-wheeling style used by Lincoln and Douglas. However, John McCain challenged Obama to a series of town hall style debates--which Obama at first said he was interested in. But predictably, Obama flip-flopped.

Ottawa is a nice town, and quite accessible. It's just south of Interstate 80.

Related post:

My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: Jonesboro, site of the third Lincoln-Douglas Debate

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