Stephen A. Douglas: First Debate with Abraham Lincoln

Glossary

• the Abolition party, under the direction of Giddings and Fred Douglass a reference sarcastically suggesting that the new Republican Party will have at its helm the former slave Frederick Douglass as well as Joshua Giddings, an abolitionist who represented Ohio in Congress
• Northwest not the Pacific Northwest but the northwestern corner of the nation in his time—that is, Minnesota and adjoining states
• Ottawa to Jonesboro two towns in Illinois
• popular sovereignty the principle that citizens in the territories had the right to decide for themselves, on a state-by-state basis, whether to allow slavery within their borders
• revolutionary opposed to the authority of the Constitution