The Site of the Lincoln – Douglas Debate, Broadway at the foot of Market St., is now occupied by a large municipal parking area. Here, on October 15, 1858, Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln met in their campaign for election to the United States Senate. From a platform erected on the east side of the old City Hall they addressed a crowd estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 people.
Douglas, his voice worn with continual public speaking, maintained, as in previous debates, that each State should decide the slavery question for itself, and told the audience that Lincoln believed that a Negro was as good as a white. Lincoln restated his belief that a house divided against itself could not stand, that the States must be all slave or all free, and that a crisis was approaching which would swing the country one way or the other.
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