ros051110em56.mp3
/*** CE ros051110em56 ***/
[000] Now, the Rest of the Story.
[001] The issues of a political debate more than a year or two
previous are difficult for anyone to remember, but the
Lincoln- Douglas debates of 1858, every school child
knows [they] were about slavery, an issue which within 3
years was to divide the nation in [C]ivil [W]ar.
[002] Specifically, at stake in those debates was an Illinois
seat in the US Senate [which] Stephen Douglas held and
which Abraham Lincoln wanted.
[003] Senators [of] that time were chosen by state legislators
rather than by direct popular vote[.] So[,] in the
Lincoln-Douglas [debates], each man was seeking to get as
many backers as possible elected to [the] Illinois
[legislature].
[004] There were seven debates in all[,] from Aug. 21 to Oct.
15 in towns scattered across the state.
[005] The physical contrast between the contestants were
startling.
[006] Douglas was short, massive, aggressive[.] His delivery
was [likened] to the roar of a confident lion.
[007] Lincoln, on the other hand, was angular, awkward,
towering[.] His voice was high and thin as his frame,
[yet] his logic was intellectually intriguing.
[008] Lincoln spoke for the rising young Republican Party[,]
which vigorously opposed to the spread of [slavery] into
the western territories.
[009] Consequently, Lincoln denounced the Supreme Court's
recent [Dred] Scott decision which allowed for such an
extension.
[010] Douglas was cautious in responding to that issue.
[011] He was not [all out] pro-slavery, but he defended his
[longtime] position that [the] people of each territory
should be permitted to decide for themselves.
[012] Technically, Stephen A. Douglas won the debates of 1858.
[013] At least Illinois voters elected enough pro-Douglas
legislators to return him to the US Senate by a
comfortable margin.
[014] But in the long run, Lincoln was the winner, because when
those two rivals collided again in 1860, the prize was
the presidency of the United States.
[015] And by that time[,] because of the debates two years
earlier[,] Lincoln was elevated from local to national
prominence while Douglas[,] who did not need [a] national
publicity[, choked] in his bid for the presidency on his
past statements in Illinois.
[016] Anyway, that's what history tells us.
[017] But did you know that there was a prize sought mutually
by Douglas and Lincoln before the 1860 presidential
campaign and even before the 1858 Senate race?
[018] Oh, yes, there was.
[019] The first time they tangled was in Springfield, Illinois,
in 1839.
[020] No [doubt] that first contest gave Lincoln [a]
psychological edge in their future encounters, because,
unlike the now famous debates of 1858, there was no doubt
whatsoever as to the outcome[:] Lincoln won.
[021] You see that contest was held in, was held in the parlor
of a private home[, and each] contestant argued [his
case] separately [,] not in the presence of his
opponent[,] and the first prize in that first
Lincoln-Douglas debate was the one woman both Lincoln and
Douglas wanted to marry.
[022] She came from a prominent well-connected family, she was
well-educated and ambitious, and there was never a
question that whomever she married would succeed
spectacularly.
[023] Of course, her name was Mary Todd.
[024] Only now, you know the rest of the story.