The Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Throughout high school, I harbored a deep admiration for debate and dreamed of joining the team. Its quintessence of ideals in rational argument, tolerance for conflicting points of view, and rigorous self-examination appealed strongly to me. Yet simple things, like pronouncing a word wrong or having an accent, were enough to hold me back. Thus, I passed through my high school years unnoticed.

Relate to the Audience: I understand that everyone has their opinion and that each opinion means something, but just sit back and take in a little more information about this debate.

I am planning to write a paper for my Key Assessment Task # 3: Representing My Inquiry, because coming from a Psychology major, I am someone who highly enjoys writing research papers. I often experience flow during these moments. Flow or the “zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity—complete absoprtion” (Wikipedia, 2017, para. 1). Writing research papers is also one of my known strengths throughout high school and university. Therefore, currently, at this stage I am extracting relevant information from the sources. I have a few more articles extract information from and then I will move to the four

The Seven Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of political debates for a Senate seat of Illinois between Abraham Lincoln, Illinois lawyer and the Republican candidate, and Stephen A. Douglas, senator from Illinois since 1847, for the Democratic Party. Lincoln and Douglas held one debate in each in seven congressional districts in Illinois. The first debate was held on August 21, 1858. Ottawa, north-central Illinois, The debates centered on the issue of slavery. Douglas accused Lincoln with trying to “abolitionize” the Whig and Democratic Parties and he also charged Lincoln as a radical abolitionist while Lincoln accused Douglas most importantly trying to nationalize slavery actively conspiring with the south. Veracity, Accusation and Conspiracy in Lincoln 's Campaign for the Senate by Fred J. Kauffeld, Edgewood College, illustrates Lincoln accusation of Douglas being an active conspirator or a tool for Southern leadership is doubtful while Stephen A. Douglas and the South by Robert W. Johannsen, University of Illinois investigates the root history, desires and political association of Douglas with southern states of United states.

State main argument #1: Kids should have recess for at least 20 mins a day

First we see the causes of the debates. Both Lincoln and Douglas were running for a place in the United States Senate

They are often asked the same questions and their responses typically draw in or push away voters. Debates can show voters what the candidate will be like as their representative and foreshadow the major decisions that the candidate would make in office. While the Lincoln-Douglas debates are remembered as the first major political debates in the United States, most elections occurred with some sort of discussion between

The late 1850's were a time of bitter debate throughout the United States. The issues of slavery, state's rights, and the use of tariffs were threatening to divide the nation and there was talk of secession by the Southern states. This dissension was not just between the individual states but spread as well to individual politicians throughout all the states. Probably one of the most widely recognized examples of this dissension were the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in their efforts to seek a Senate seat from the State of Illinois (Foner, 2010). Although the election of Senators in the 1850s was still the province of the state legislature the debates between Lincoln and Douglas still had a profound effect on the political affairs of the time and played a significant role in the outcome of the Presidential election held just two years later. Abraham Lincoln lost in his bid to be elected to the United States Senate but in losing he ultimately won as his debates with Douglas established him as a strong voice against slavery and catapulted him into the Presidency only two years later.

Lincoln always hated slavery, but he was smart enough not to publicly announce it. His public statements on slavery and race have been the cause of controversy throughout the years, as he often seems to almost contradict himself at first glance. However, analyzing the seemingly racist statements he would make shows that they were all part of a bigger plan. Had he simply told the racist audiences that their beliefs were wrong, they would have rejected him outright. Instead, he would use ambiguous language to make it seem as if he shared their beliefs, and then use sound logic to argue in favor of his own point. By doing this, he molded the opinions of his audience in an extremely effective manner.

Stephen Douglas, born in Brandon, Rutland County Vermont in 1813, became a lawyer after embarking to Illinois. He was exposed to English studies like mathematics and classical languages and was very active in the school debating society. He also grew up around politics; living in an area where there were town meetings, local democracy, and self-government. At times, he would often spent his evenings and Sundays in political discussion with other young men in the community. He studied law and served as judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois From 1841-1843. He became a member of the State House of Representatives in 1836-1837. Then he was elected into the U.S. House of Representatives and served in Congress as a Democrat from 1847 -1861. Stephen

The Lincoln/Douglas debates were a series of debates between the republican candidate Abraham Lincoln and the democrat candidate Stephen Douglas for the control of the Illinois legislature. The total number of debates at this time was seven, the main topic that surrounded these debates between Lincoln and Douglas was the issue of slavery and how it would be handled in the future. The debates were all settled in the state of Illinois in the seven different districts of Quincy, Charleston, Alton, Ottawa, Jonesboro, Galesburg, and Freeport. The debates lasted for 3 months, with the first debate being held on August 21st of 1858, and the last debate on October 15th of the same year.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates involved several issues dividing the nation, slavery versus free labor, popular sovereignty, and the legal and political status of black Americans.

We live in a world where we communicate with many individuals in different ways. A debate is a structured argument, in which it conducts two sides of an argument where individuals are either affirmative and negative side. The first affirmative speaker begins the argument and is then followed by the first negative speaker. When given the debate topic, my group and I were told that we will be debating the issue on body cameras, in which we resolve that the body camera should or should not be implemented by police officers across the U.S. It is important to understand what makes a great debate topic in order to win the argument. When looking for any information about a case I tend to ask myself question like ‘how current is the information that

In the excerpt by Deborah Tannen entitled, The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue Tannen speaks about the oppositional nature of public discourse. She expressed her thoughts on how we are determined to seek certainty by using arguments from two different standpoints, as if there are no additional angles that can be examined. Oftentimes, there are more than two sides of an issue, but due to the way society has taught us, we only look at issues from two extreme perspectives. I find Dr. Tannen to be extremely intelligent in her observations of how people communicate using debates and opposition as a means to express what we believe to be true. Although Americans habitually view issues from only two extreme points of view, dialogue solves more problems than debates because it does not cause division among people as frequently as debates does.

The concept of flow in occupational science is described as an autotelic experience where an individual is fully engaged under a high challenge activity. Often times, one may lose sense of time due to high level of concentration. My engagement with debate did not begin with an autotelic experience, but I was introduced by my friends to a debate camp that paid students $400 dollars each to learn the structure of policy debate. This