Posted by
Publius North on Monday, August 18, 2008 6:57:08 PM
This Thursday will mark the sesquicentennial of the first of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. The first held at Ottawa, Illinois is where Lincoln declared:
“In the first place, let us see what influence he is exerting on public sentiment. In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.”
Carl Sandburg writes, “Shade trees were few in the Ottawa public square and most of the twelve thousand listeners were in a broiling summer sun on August 21st when the first of the debates took place. For three hours they listened. Seventeen cars full of them had come from Chicago. By train, canal boat, wagon, buggy and afoot they arrived, waved flags, formed processions and escorted their heroes.”
Lord Charnwood in his biography of Lincoln (among, if not the best), observes that Lincoln’s House Divided speech (June 16, 1858) accepting the Republican Party nomination for the Senate, “had made a stir, but the rest of his speeches in these long debates could not be noticed at a distance”, that is, on the East Coast. But Harry Jaffa points to Charnwood’s “opinion that Lincoln, in the debates, had ‘performed what, apart from results, was a work of intellectual merit beyond the compass of any American statesman since Hamilton.’”
In fact, in a key question posed to Stephen Douglas at the second debate at Freeport on August 27, 1858, Lincoln sealed the defeat of the Democrat Party in 1860. Further, the published edition of the collected debates was the campaign literature in 1860.
Remember and appreciate the greatness of Mr. Lincoln as we look forward to the debates of this coming presidential canvas. Perhaps take the time to re-read the first debate would be an appropriate way to do this. Although I know many of you have this book on your shelf, for those who do not, you may find it at the following link. http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/debate1.htm Then order a copy from your favourite book seller and read all the debates.