The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text

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The series of debates in Illinois between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 campaign for the U.S. Senate are one of those legendary political encounters of which everyone has heard but few have gone back and actually read. However, since Lincoln never kept any of his papers prior to winning the Presidency, we do not have autograph copies of his Cooper Union or House Divided speeches, let alone his handwritten notes of the great debates. The claim made by Harold Holzer for his edition is that this is the first complete, unexpurgated text of the debates to be published. Holzer notes that what we have relied upon previously for debate transcripts were copies taken down by stenographers for intensely partisan newspapers. Holzer's hypothesis is that the editors and transcribers for these newspapers would improve the remarks by their own candidates while leaving those of his opponent alone. Supporting his idea are the unedited texts of the debate he uncovered. Of...Read more

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates have justly been celebrated in American history as one of the milestones in Abraham Lincoln's rise to the presidency. However, Lincoln's own well-meaning assembling of the received text of these debates used only transcripts from papers friendly to either candidate--transcripts which, Harold Holzer argues, were smoothed over and revised by reporters eager to make "their" candidate look good. Holzer insists that we must go to the transcripts of Lincoln's speeches by the pro-Douglas paper, and vice-versa, to get a true sense of what was said off the cuff by the debaters. His edition portrays vividly not only the high-sounding rhetoric of Douglas and the noble ideals of Lincoln, but also the hesitations and mis-speakings of both men. In this way, the reader gets a better sense of what it was like to be in the crowd listening as history was being made

This is a great historical resource. I found it to be a great source for insight into the man and the beliefs of Abraham Lincoln. I highly recommend this book.