I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist. –Abraham Lincoln, July 10, 1858
- How did the strategic arguments between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass illustrate the differences between the broader antislavery movement and the abolitionists during the antebellum period?
- Both Lincoln and Frederick Douglass bitterly opposed the views of Democratic US Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Yet some Republicans after 1857 considered Senator Douglas as a possible ally for the broader antislavery movement. Why did Lincoln and Frederick Douglass reject such outreach?
- Stephen Douglas was a Northern Democrat and yet he came into his own bitter conflicts with other Northern Democrats led by President James Buchanan. How did their views differ? What about a Border State Democrat such as Chief Justice Roger B. Taney? Where would you place his views on the spectrum of 1850s politics?