Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen A. Douglas was a U.S. senator from Illinois from 1846 to 1861 and was a candidate for president in 1860. He is perhaps best remembered for his debates with political rival Abraham Lincoln, whom he defeated in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign.

The following viewpoint is taken from a speech Douglas gave in Chicago on July 9, 1858, during his reelection campaign against Lincoln. The campaign featured debates between the two candidates over the issue of slavery, especially whether slavery should be allowed to expand in the western territories. Douglas favored “popular sovereignty”—that local communities of the territories themselves should decide whether to legalize slavery. This principle was central to the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law Douglas sponsored, that permitted the slavery status of the Kansas and Nebraska territories to be decided by the local residents. In this...