uglas accepted. It was arranged that seven debates would be held in seven different cities between August and October. In the debates, both candidates respected each other and kept to the issues. The basis of discussion was the morality of slavery. Although the Republicans carried the state ticket and outvoted the Democrats, the Illinois legislature re-elected Douglas to the Senate(Oates 73). The campaign, widely reported in the newspapers, had an importance far beyond the fate of the candidates. It demonstrated to the South that the Republican Party was steadily growing in strength and that it would oppose the extension of slavery by every possible means. The campaign also showed Douglas to be an unreliable ally to the South. He had said repeatedly in the debates that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. In addition, Lincoln, previously known only locally, gained a national reputation even in defeat. One year later, John Brown made his famous raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. John Brown was already an outlaw from a previous incident in which him and his five sons became active participants in the fight against proslavery terrorists from Missouri, whose activities led to the murder of a number of abolitionists at Lawrence, Kansas. Brown and his sons avenged this crime, in May of 1856 at Pottawatomie Creek, by killing five proslavery followers. This act, along with his success in withstanding a large group of attacking Missourians at Osawatomie in August, made him nationally famous as a hostile foe of slavery. Now, aided by increased financial support from abolitionists in the northeastern states, Brown began in 1857 to formulate a plan to free the slaves by armed force(Oates 87). He secretly recruited a small band of supporters for this project, which included a refuge for fugitive slaves in the mountains of Virginia(Bradford 54). After several setbacks, he finally launched the venture on October 16,...
