On Slavery and Political Conflicts in the U.
In the midst of conflicting regional visions that prevailed in that time, northern vs. southern, slavery emerges as an important and controversial political issue. With The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) and the Dred Scott Case (1857) as antecedents, the Lincoln-Douglas debates evidentiate the danger that the issue of slavery meant to the nation. These debates were held between Abraham Lincoln (Republican) and Stephen A. Douglas (Democrat) throughout 7 Congressional Districts of Illinois during 1858, when both were competing to win the US Senate seat, which ended with Lincoln's defeat (Infobahn Outfitters, Inc). The Lincoln-Douglas debates gave Lincoln enough recognition to win the Presidential election of 1860, but its main importance resides in the introduction of a new format to manage political debates between candidates that is still used (AP Project). The following pages will give an analysis about the treatment of slavery related to the sovereignity of the States and the division of the Union, and to the Union's foundation. The controversial Lincoln-Douglas debates are a signal of a greater conflict between North and South that will come to an end only by the means of war and the imposition of Northern perspective over the Southern states.
One of the main topics discussed in the Lincoln-Douglas debates was the division of the Union in slave and free states and its relation to the sovereignity of the States. In respect to that, Douglas, in his 7th Debate speech, argues that it is not only possible for the Union to exist being divided but it is politically correct because it represents the exercise of each state's sovereignity. For Douglas, "to throw the weight of federal power into the scale, either in favor of the free or the slave States" (Douglas, 7th Debate Speech) is a threat and violation to the States" sovereignity, the maximun principle in which the nation was founded.
