GettysBlog

150th Anniversary of the Lincoln Douglas Debates

On August 21, 1858 a then relatively unknown Abraham Lincoln first debated Stephen A. Douglas in Ottawa, Illinois during their campaign to become a U.S. senator. Their seven debates that summer and fall have become the gold standard for political debates. See the multimedia slideshow Debating Douglas on the National Stage, 1857-1858 (Requires RealPlayer) to learn more about their historical context and significance. 

You may recall that earlier this year Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama to a Lincoln - Douglas style debate during the primary season. I wonder if the American public would have found this interesting or not, since the 1858 debates featured an hour-long presentation by the first speaker (Lincoln and Douglas alternated going first), an hour and a half response by the second candidate, and then a half hour rejoinder by the first speaker. Would you be willing and able to watch a three hour political debate? How would the second-by-second 24 hour news cycle handle this kind of marathon?

Lincoln lost this election, but gained valuable national exposure. Two years later he defeated Douglas and others to become our 16th president. It was during these debates that Lincoln started honing and perfecting the rhetorical skills that we have been reading about this summer.

Our author, Garry Wills, will be speaking about the Lincoln - Douglas Debates when he visits Cornell on September 17th. 

See you all in Barton Hall on Sunday afternoon.

Welcome to Cornell!

Image: Lincoln and Douglas, November 3, 1903. Creator: Jaspard, J. M. Image Source: Chicago Historical Society

Who was William Seward?

As the front runner for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination before I was selected as the party’s nominee, William H. Seward was my political rival. He was to be my Secretary of State and later my close personal friend. He helped me write my First Inaugural address (see p. 158 of our book) and the Emancipation Proclamation.

Seward also served the public as a New York state senator, a Governor of New York, and a United States Senator. He was gravely injured in an attack by one of John Wilkes Booth’s accomplices that awful night in April 1865.  He survived and continued as Secretary of State for my successor, Andrew Johnson, and in that position he negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia­-then commonly mocked by the public as “Seward’s Folly.” Seward House, his home in Auburn, NY, just north of Ithaca, is now a museum.

On November 18, 1863, the night before I gave my speech at Gettysburg (see p. 31 of Lincoln at Gettysburg) Seward addressed a crowd outside the house where he was staying:

"When we part to-morrow night, let us remember that we owe it to our country and to mankind that this war shall have for its conclusion the establishing of the principle of democratic government; ­ the simple principle that whatever party, whatever portion of the community, prevails by constitutional suffrage in an election, that party is to be respected and maintained in power, until it shall give place, on another trial and another verdict, to a different portion of the people. If you do not do this, you are drifting at once and irresistibly to the very verge of universal, cheerless, and hopeless anarchy. But with that principle this government ours ­ the purest, the best, the wisest, and the happiest in the world ­ must be, and, so far as we are concerned, practically will be, immortal."

I could not have said this better myself. Actually, I did. But I do not wish to be critical of my colleague.

For all of you Cornell readers, let it be known that Seward was a "voracious reader" and had "a mind crammed with information gleaned from the literature of Europe and America, and from a host of American contemporaries ranging from Washington Irving to Jean Louise Rodolphe Agassiz."(Glyndon Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, p. 209.)

Who is Erasmus E. Bassett?

You will not find his name in the index of Lincoln at Gettysburg. He was not a famous man nor someone that I knew personally. He was one of the Union soldiers that I purposefully did not name in my address at Gettysburg, but it is "altogether fitting and proper" that I do so here, because this brave man was one of the thousands of men who gave "the last full measure of devotion" on that battlefield.

Erasmus E. Bassett and his brother Richard (Dick) were from Barrington, NY, a town not far from Ithaca. They enlisted in Company B of the 126th New York Volunteer Infantry on August 4, 1862.  Their father gave Erasmus a diary while he was home on leave at Christmas time that year. That dairy is now a part of the archives in the Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections in Kroch Library at Cornell. Pictured here is page 76 of that diary. The entries (with added annotations) read:

Tuesday, June 30, 1863

Send Dick $5.00. Pitch tents in woods near Unionville. Boys all come in*. Go to house & wash & eat. Muster. March on 1 mile and camp. Buy wool hat for $2.00 at Unionville. March 1 mile

*The long hard march of the 29^th left many stragglers along the way. This day of only marching 1 mile allowed stragglers to catch up.

Wednesday, July 1, 1863

Leave camp at 7. Go to Taneytown 6 ½ miles. Ordered back 3 miles then march within 5 miles of Gettysburg and stop for the night, been fighting at Gettysburg

Thursday, July 2, 1863

Start towards Gettysburg at 4 A.M. Arrive near town at 6 ¾ A.M. Form line of battle. 39^th NY go out skirmishing, lose several...

____________________________________________________________________________

12 O’Clock at night I find my Brother Erasmus lying dead where I took this from his pocket.

R. A. Bassett**

**Captain Richard Allen Bassett, brother to Erasmus E. Bassett referred to many times in this diary as “Dick” wrote home of the incident, “I thought of George [another brother who had died at Antietam] and then think of Rapsy [Erasmus] falling so near him. I could not help weeping.”

Richard marked his brother's battlefield grave and later Erasmus's body was sent home for reburial in Barrington. See The Bassett Boys Go to War for a more detailed account of the Bassett brothers at Gettysburg.

Who is Edward Everett?

Although my own remarks at the dedication of Soldier's National Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA were a mere three minutes long, my contemporary, Edward Everett, played a more prominent role in the dedication ceremony by giving the Oration.  His speech "connected the heroic struggle for freedom in the classical and modern worlds with the valor and sacrifice demonstrated on America's battlefields. He justified the Union cause and predicted that the North and South would eventually reconcile, leading to a restored and stronger Union."  Read the entire oration here.

Everett had an illustrious political career as a US Congressman, Governor of Massachusetts, and Secretary of State for President Millard Fillmore.  He also served as Harvard's president from 1846 to 1849 (although he was rather unpopular with the students; they coined him "Old Granny" in reference to his displeasure over the undisciplined nature of the students).  Read his biography from the Harvard Square Library.

Everett was a gracious colleague.  Following my remarks at Gettysburg, he sent me a quick note praising the "eloquent simplicity and appropriateness" of my words.  View a copy of the letter here as part of the American Treasures at The Library of Congress.

Unfortunately, Everett's words were eclipsed by my remarks on that day of dedication.  However, his gift of oration will never be truly forgotten.