Commentary
When Sen. Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln faced off in a debate in Peoria, Illinois, in 1854, the issue tearing apart the nation was slavery.
A central issue was whether slavery would be permitted in new territories entering the union.
Douglas’ answer to the question was politics. Lincoln’s answer was morality and the Bible.
Douglas’ answer to slavery in new states, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was democracy. Citizens would vote to permit or not permit slavery in their state.
Lincoln opposed the expansion of what he saw as the inherently evil institution of slavery.
In the Peoria debate, Lincoln stated, “Judge Douglas interrupted me to say that the principle of the Nebraska bill was very old: that it originated when God made man and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose for himself, being responsible for the choice he should make.”…