State Rep's Report

August 27 marks the anniversary of the historic debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas held in Freeport in 1858. Douglas, a Democrat and a powerful U.S. Senator, was challenged by Lincoln, a lawyer from Springfield and a member of the new Republican Party.

Freeport hosted the second of seven debates between the two candidates that year, who were to face each other again just two years later in the presidential election of 1860. According to the Lincoln-Douglas Society of Freeport, Illinois, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people attended the Freeport debate to hear two of our nation’...