The Lincoln-Douglas Debates were a series of seven debates between August 21st, 1858 and October 15th, 1858, between Demorcrat Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign. It largely concerned the issue of slavery extensions into the newly acquired territories. Lincoln delivered his now famous "A House Divided" speech when he was nominated to run for the Senate by the Republican convention in Springfield. In part, Lincoln said that a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Lincoln believed that a government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. Lincoln did not expect the Union to be dissolved or the nation to fall, but that it would cease to be divided. He believed either the United States
