The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

 

            Harry A.  Jaffa, the foremost interpreter of the Lincoln Douglas debates, regarded the debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln as the key political moment which destroyed Douglas’s political future and paved the way for Lincoln’s eventual victory in 1860.  Our class is going to look at the debates both as expressions of each man’s political philosophy and moments of great political theater.  These men were both doing everything they could to appeal to the voters and to stake out positions that they thought would gain them votes while still remaining true to their own beliefs. 

 

            In class, you are going to be taking a 21st century look at these 1858 debates.  You are going to be pretend to be pundits analyzing the debates as they would be discussed today on a Cable News show like Hardball or Hannity and Colmes.   You will be responsible for making sure the rest of the class understands the main points that each candidate made in your specific debates.  You also need to analyze how successful each was during the debate in appealing to the voters and turning the tables on his opponent.  Some of you will be partisan pundits representing the Democratic and Republican Parties and giving the “talking points” in praise of your candidate and criticizing his opponent.

 

            Another part of your group will be to make political attack ads responding to what each candidate said in your specific debates.

 

            This site is fantastic.  It has newspaper reports on each of the debates.  You can use it to get a feeling for what the partisan press was saying about the debates.  Remember that, at that time, each newspaper had a definite partisan slant.  Your commentary should reflect the tone in these newspaper commentaries. (Keep clicking away and you’ll get to the articles.  It takes several clicks to get to the articles.)  http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/lincolndouglas/commentary.html

 

 

Points

Your points

Detailed coverage of the important points for each man and analysis of the strong and weak points for each man, including the political impact of each man’s performance

55

 

Political attack ads for each candidate that appropriately attack what his opponent had said in your assigned debates

30

 

Capturing the spirit of a political pundits’ roundtable discussion but still maintaining historical verisimilitude

15

 

Total

100

 

 

Ottawa and Freeport

 

Kim, Joe, Danny, Meredith, Drew, Rachel, Daniel O’D.

 

Jonesboro, Charleston, and Galesburg

 

Chris, Sam, Ian, Brian, Greg, Jackie, Spencer

 

Quincy, and Alton

 

Peter, Daniel S., Robbie, Andrew, Jennifer, Jordan, Torrey