A Western Man

12/18/19 • 33 min

Abraham Lincoln would never had become president had he not locked horns with Stephen Douglas, whose rapid rise through Illinois politics quickly made him a national icon. Douglas' life had some parallels to Lincoln's, and in many ways, his attraction to money and flexible policy better embodied the America of the early 1850s than the old parties did.

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More Than Ordinary Prejudice

Abraham Lincoln's racial attitudes were complicated. He was willing to defend fugitive slaves and appears to have lived in what was (for its time) an integrated neighborhood. But he also defended a slaveholder in court, and advocated for schemes to persuade African-Americans to leave the land of their birth.

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We Rose Fighting

Nursing his own ambitions and trying to hold onto his power in the U.S. Senate, Stephen Douglas agreed to introduce legislation repealing the Missouri Compromise and opening the upper Midwest to slavery. The brazen assault by pro-slavery forces upended the nation's party system and brought Abraham Lincoln to the forefront of the forces opposing Douglas and defending the Declaration of Independence.