Lincoln Douglas Debate

A popular form of high school and college debate is LD, or Lincoln Douglas Debate. The format consists of one on one argumentation, and all of the topics are ones where what is being debated is the morality of certain situations. For example, a recent topic was "The United States ought to promote democracy in the Middle East". All of the arguments usually revolve around the responsibility of an entity to do one thing or another. From an American history perspective, this form of debate stems from actual presidential debates between Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln and Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas. Nicknamed the "Great Debates of 1858", Lincoln and Douglas debated a total of seven times, with the main issue in all of them being slavery. When they agreed to do the debates, Lincoln and Douglas decided to hold one debate in each of the nine congressional districts in Illinois, a free state. The debates themselves were long for a one on one debate, one candidate would speak for an hour, and then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate would be allowed a 30 minute "rejoinder", or rebuttal. As the incumbent, Douglas had the advantage of speaking first in the majority of the debates.

As far as the content of the debates, Douglas believed in popular sovereignty rather than the banning of slavery across the nation. He argued that both the Whigs and the Democrats wanted popular sovereignty, pointing at the Compromise of 1850 as an example of that. Similarly, evidence is also vital in LD debate in competitions in order to prove your moral arguments. Lincoln fired back that what the states wanted is the illegality of slavery, and that popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision were departures from the polices of the past that would nationalize slavery.

While the format is now very different (no more 90 minute speeches), both Lincoln and Douglas's dynamic debates are still remembered and emulated today in the realm of high school Speech and Debate.


Sources: speechanddebate.org
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debates.htm