1858

Lincoln-Douglas mirror the national debate on slavery

Freeport Doctrine = Douglas’s proposal during Lincoln-Douglas debates which forced Douglas to take side on slavery. "slavery cannot exist in areas which the locals do not support it"  popular sovereignty>
 * Freeport Doctrine** was Stephen Douglas's doctrine that, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, slavery could be excluded from territories of the United States by local legislation. Although propounded earlier and elsewhere, this solution of the apparent inconsistency between popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision, advanced at the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 in Freeport , Illinois, came to be known as the Freeport Doctrine. By thus answering Abraham Lincoln's questions on slavery, Douglas was able to hold his Illinois followers and secure reelection to the Senate, but the extensive publicity the doctrine received killed his chance of Southern support for the presidency in 1860.