Letter of Senator Douglas, Vindicating His Character and His Position on the Nebraska Bill.
- Creator(s):
- Douglas, Stephen.
- Title:
- Letter of Senator Douglas, Vindicating His Character and His Position on the Nebraska Bill.
- Description:
- Lincoln might not have returned to politics had he not been galvanized into action by new federal legislation threatening to expand slavery and prevent its gradual extinction, which he believed the founders intended. In 1854, U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas (Democrat, IL) proposed in his Kansas-Nebraska Act that the residents of new states be allowed to determine by popular vote whether to allow slavery. The backlash in the North led to the founding of the Republican Party. Douglas made the case to his constituents with speeches and pamphlets, such as the example above. Lincoln drew crowds when he spoke against the act and began appearing at Douglas’ events to offer rebuttals to the senator’s claims. In his “Peoria Speech” of October 1854, Lincoln made his clearest public statement yet against slavery: “there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.”
- Source:
- Photograph by Vincent Dilio. Courtesy of David M. Rubenstein.
- Citation:
- Douglas, Stephen. Letter of Senator Douglas, Vindicating His Character and His Position on the Nebraska Bill. Washington, D.C.: Sentinel Office, 1854.