Article: USI TO HOST HISTORY'S 'GREAT DEBATERS'

In 1858 two ill-matched Senate candidates walked onto a hastily built platform in Illinois and began a series of marathon debates that changed American history.

One was a tall, gangly Republican lawyer named Abraham Lincoln whose political career hung in the balance. The other was the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate, a diminutive Democrat named Stephen A. Douglas.

They would debate at seven outdoor sites across Illinois on one topic - slavery, and whether it should be legalized in the newly organized western territories.

Lincoln lost the 1858 election, but not the debates, catapulting him into the national spotlight and his party's 1860 nomination for president.

At 7 p.m. June 19, ...

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