In east-central Illinois near the Piatt County village of Bement sits the Bryant Cottage State Historic Site. The house was built in 1856 by Francis E. Bryant, and legend has it that it was in his parlor that his friend Senator Stephen Douglas sat down with former Congressman Abraham Lincoln to plan out what would become the most famous debates in American history.It had been a long and difficult road to get to this meeting, one that the two protagonists had been traveling for several years; Lincoln with great enthusiasm, Douglas with growing irritation. Now they would formalize their terms.
Lincoln and Douglas had debated a few times before. They served together for two years in the Illinois legislature at Vandalia. They had both been circuit-riding lawyers and were sometimes on opposite sides of the same case.
Occasionally they would find themselves with time to fill while waiting for a verdict. The two young lawyers would pass the time by discussing the news or the day’s events in court. Such was the case in 1840 at the “riverbank debate” beside the Vermilion River in Pontiac where both lawyers had attended the opening session of the Livingston County court.
“They spoke in the street, or rather open prairie, from the top of a dry goods box,” recalled Judge W. G. McDowell years later about one of the first of many encounters in courthouse towns throughout central Illinois. But the two men were on opposite career trajectories.
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| Political campaign banner showing the 1860 Northern Democrat Party candidates. Photo courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. |
He resigned his House seat to move to the Senate in 1847. On his way out the door of the House chamber in Washington he might have bumped into Lincoln, who was on his way in for a single term. Douglas became a towering figure in the Senate, his diminutive frame and outsized stature earning him the nickname “Little Giant.”
Douglas was mentioned for the Presidency in 1852 and 1856, but he fell short each time. It was looking like 1860 might finally be his turn; he just needed to dispense with the formality of holding onto his Senate seat in 1858.
Lincoln was moving the other direction. The end of his House term in 1849 looked like the end of his political career. He failed to secure a position as Commissioner of the General Land Office, and then turned down the consolation prize he was offered by President Zachary Taylor as Governor of the Oregon Territory. Lincoln returned to his law practice in Springfield, trying to provide for his family by taking whatever cases he could find in the small prairie towns. Tragedy struck in 1850 when his young son, Eddie, died suddenly; the latest in a long string of heartbreaks in Lincoln’s life.
Douglas was riding high by the 1850s, and it was his success which would cause Lincoln to hear his nation’s call once more. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Douglas was in the middle of the thorny questions about governing the western territories that might one day become states. Nowhere was this difficulty greater than in Kansas.
Slavery was prohibited in the Kansas Territory and all other points to the north by the 1820 Missouri Compromise, but pro-slavery voices were demanding its admission as a slave state anyway. Violence and disorder soon threatened.
Douglas thought he had a solution: a doctrine he called “popular sovereignty.” The residents of each new state would choose whether to permit or prohibit slavery, regardless of their geographic location. With the enactment of his Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Douglas believed he had forged a compromise that would save the union by moving the question of slavery out of Congress and into the hands of the residents of the states. Lincoln believed he had just opened the door to the spread of the evil institution to the entire country. Douglas thought he had burnished his credentials as a peacemaker and paved his way to the Presidency. Lincoln saw his chance to re-emerge onto the scene.
Illinois’ other Senate seat was coming open, so Lincoln threw his stovepipe hat into the ring. Though Douglas was not up that year, Lincoln relished the chance for a confrontation with the Little Giant, and he set about preparing an ambush.
The opportunity came on September 26, 1854, when Douglas planned to give a speech in Bloomington. Waiting for him amongst the crowd was Lincoln, who dramatically challenged the Senator to a discussion about Kansas. Douglas refused and proceeded with his planned speech.
But Lincoln had captured the attention of the crowd. He sat through Douglas’ speech taking notes for all in the crowd to see. He then announced that if they would reassemble later that evening he would offer a rebuttal. A large crowd did return, and Lincoln got the last word.
A week later he tried again in Springfield when Douglas gave another long speech at the Capitol. Lincoln once again invited attendees to join him the next day for a response. This time, Douglas decided to stick around and interject a few questions of his own. The tactic backfired. Lincoln’s everyman style connected with the crowd far better than the haughty Douglas and his constant interruptions. By accepting the challenge, Douglas had boosted Lincoln’s stature considerably.
Douglas’ next speech was scheduled for October 16 in Peoria, and Lincoln was chomping at the bit for another confrontation. Once again, Douglas spoke, and then Lincoln invited the crowd to return after dinner for his rebuttal. That night, he spoke for three hours and condemned the “monstrous injustice” of slavery, and Douglas’ role in its expansion into the west.
Lincoln had triumphed again. But the collapse of his Whig Party, and its fracturing into competing factions would drag him down as well. When the legislature met in 1855 to select a U.S. Senator, it turned not to Lincoln but to Lyman Trumbull, a former Secretary of State and Supreme Court justice who would represent Illinois in the Senate for the next 18 years.
The defeat was yet another setback for Lincoln, who had experienced the bitter taste of failure many, many times. But he was undeterred. Douglas himself would be up for another term in 1858, and Lincoln would be ready and waiting for him.
Meanwhile, tensions over slavery did not diminish. Kansas exploded into violence between pro and anti-slavery factions. A South Carolina congressman brutally beat a Massachusetts senator nearly to death on the Senate floor. The Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Dred Scott case. Douglas’ legislation had not brought peace or compromise. The nation was closer to civil war now than ever before.
The next round between Lincoln and Douglas came in the summer and fall of 1858. There had been one earlier skirmish: a testy exchange of speeches in Springfield in June 1857, a year before Lincoln formally launched his drive for the Senate with his famous “House divided” speech in June 1858.
Once again, Douglas refused to debate, and once again, Lincoln pursued him around the state. Douglas would draw the crowds and Lincoln would win them over. In July, Lincoln followed Douglas to Chicago and gave a rebuttal to the senator’s speech. A week later their paths crossed again in Springfield.
It was becoming clear to Douglas that no matter where he went or what he did, he could not shake his challenger. He was also giving Lincoln the advantage of having the last word on each discussion. Lincoln had only chosen this strategy because the Little Giant refused his debate challenge. In so doing, he allowed Douglas to choose the time and place for the exchanges and the topic to which he would have to respond. They would need to reach some kind of arrangement.
Enter Francis Bryant.
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| Bryant Cottage State Historic Site |
Here the historical record becomes unclear. As told by the Bryant family, Lincoln and Douglas sat down in the Bryant parlor a short time later to make the ground rules for the debate. Other versions of the story have Lincoln accepting the Douglas terms with a letter only. It is known that Douglas stayed the night at the Bryant Cottage and while there he wrote the letter which would end up outlining the structure of the debates. Whichever version is true, the Bryant Cottage played a clear role in the organization of the debates.
Following the clashes in Chicago and Springfield, there were seven congressional districts in Illinois
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| Lincoln Douglas Debates 1958 postage stamp |
Outside of the debates, the two challengers would not appear together again. No more speeches and rebuttals. Lincoln had gotten his debates; Douglas had gotten rid of his pursuer. When the Little Giant strode onto the stage in Ottawa to meet the (future) Great Emancipator in the first debate on August 21, 1858, they had forever changed the way Americans selected their leaders.