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Lincoln-Douglas Debates, series of seven formal meetings during the Illinois senatorial campaign of 1858, in which Republican Abraham Lincoln argued the issue of slavery with the Democratic incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas.

Douglas, known for his ability as an orator, was running for a third term as United States senator from Illinois. He opened his campaign for reelection with a speech in Chicago on July 9; Lincoln replied on the following evening. Douglas made another major address in Springfield on the afternoon of July 17; Lincoln answered him that night. Thus the pattern of the debates was established.

On July 24 Lincoln issued a formal challenge. “Will it be agreeable to you,” he wrote to Douglas, “to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences during the present canvass?” With some reluctance, since he was the better-known candidate, Douglas accepted, and the terms were agreed upon.

Illinois had nine congressional districts, and both men had already spoken in two. Therefore, seven joint meetings were specified: at Ottawa on August 21, Freeport on August 27, Jonesboro on September 15, Charleston on September 18, Galesburg on October 7, Quincy on October 13, and Alton on October 15. Douglas would open the first debate with a speech of an hour's duration, and Lincoln would have an hour and a half for a reply. Then Douglas would close with a half-hour rejoinder. The pattern would be followed in all seven debates, with the candidates alternating in giving the opening speech.

Although many issues confronted the nation, Lincoln and Douglas discussed only the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories. Both men took as their points of departure the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which Douglas had pushed through Congress in 1854, and the U.S. Supreme Court Dred Scott decision of 1857. Under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, slavery could enter U.S. territories north of latitude 36°30' (from which it had previously been excluded) only if the inhabitants wanted it. The Dred Scott decision, on the other hand, held that a master could take slaves into free territory and keep them there as slaves. This decision, by implication, nullified the popular sovereignty provision of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Lincoln took the broad ground that the fathers of the Republic had looked upon slavery as an evil and had wanted to place it in the course of “ultimate extinction.” Douglas refused to be concerned with the moral aspect of the institution, holding “popular sovereignty” to be the determining principle. At Freeport, Lincoln sought to emphasize the discrepancy between popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision. Douglas escaped from the dilemma by asserting that in spite of the Supreme Court’s decisions, slavery could exist only where it was supported by friendly local legislation.

Since senators in 1858 were elected by joint ballot of the state legislatures, Lincoln and Douglas were really campaigning for the election of state senators and representatives of their respective parties. Had the popular vote been decisive, Lincoln would probably have won. The Republican candidate for the statewide office of state treasurer polled 125,430 votes; the Douglas Democratic candidate, 121,609. The splinter Democratic factional candidate supported by President James Buchanan's followers polled 5071 votes. But the state's apportionment was not up-to-date, and half of the state senators had been elected in 1856 when the Republican Party commanded much less strength than it did two years later. As a result, when the legislature met on January 6, 1859, Douglas was reelected by a vote of 54 to 46.

For Lincoln, the defeat was not a significant political setback. The debates were widely publicized and provided him with national recognition, making possible his nomination for president in 1860 and his subsequent election.