On March 6, 1857, two days after President Buchanan was
inaugurated, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision. With
the help of several prominent abolitionists, Dred Scott, a slave,
had presented a suit for his freedom on the grounds that after
residing in a free state for a fixed period of years, he could
not legally be restored to a state of slavery as per the terms of
the Missouri Compromise.
In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney explained
that as a slave, Scott had no rights under the Constitution, and
thus no liberty to present a case in a Federal court. Further,
since slaves were property, and since the Fifth Amendment spelled
out that no person could be deprived of "life, liberty or property
without due process of the law," the Federal government was powerless
to prohibit the practice of slavery anywhere in the Union.
The Dred Scott decision proved a serious
blow to the abolitionists, and a seemingly incontrovertible victory
for the south. Further, it appeared to undermine the Kansas-Nebraska
Act, for in the assertion that the federal government was powerless
to deprive an individual of his property, the corresponding powerlessness
of a state government seemed implicit. While Stephen Douglas desperately attempted
to reconcile the Dred Scott decision with his
principle of popular sovereignty, Lincoln prepared to face off
against him in the 1858 Senate election.
Upon gaining the Republican nomination in July, Lincoln
made a forceful speech at the Illinois statehouse in Springfield,
speaking ominously of the task before the nation. "A house divided
against itself cannot stand," he famously remarked, continuing
on to assert his belief that "the government cannot endure permanently
half slave and half free." At a certain point, Lincoln concluded,
the nation must eventually become "all one thing, or all the other."
Although at the time, his inflammatory speech was viewed as a
rash political miscalculation that earned him no favor among moderates,
it was also a prophecy that would set him apart as the eventual leader
of the Union cause.
Douglas, although more influential in Washington than
ever before, recognized the formidable challenge that Lincoln presented to
him back in Illinois. "I shall have my hands full," Douglas admitted
in sizing up his chances against Lincoln. "He is the strong man of
his party...full of wit, facts, dates...and the best stump speaker, with
his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as
he is shrewd, and if I beat him my victory will be hardly won."
In an effort to improve his standing among the electorate,
with little to lose and everything to gain, Lincoln challenged
Douglas to a series of debates at various sites around the state.
Douglas accepted, and the rest is history. Throughout the summer
and early autumn, the two men met on seven separate occasions,
making lengthy, impassioned speeches in front of large, enthusiastic
crowds ranging upwards of fifteen thousand. After each debate,
the press would relay the highlights back east, and readers nationwide
followed the progress of the campaign as it unfolded.
