The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Sometime this month, two candidates will meet on stage for one of the most consequential and historic debates in modern presidential history. Consequential because never before has the United States electorate been so divided and historic because it is the first time a woman of color has been at the top of a presidential ticket and only the second time a woman has achieved the honor.
Presidential debates are a fairly new political contrivance. I was around for the Kenedy-Nixon debates in 1960. There was a debate proposed between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson in 1956, but it never happened. Prior to that the only other debate happened some 98 years earlier in 1858 between Lincoln and Douglas… and even then, it was not a presidential debate, but a debate between opposing senatorial candidates
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Moderator: Good evening from the campus of the Gotchunow University, at Yoazz, Mississippi. My name is Hava Noshame from Scorch Earth News, and I will be joined by my esteem colleague Ms. Kutta Demoff, from the syndicated news hour, DeBalls. We like to thank our sponsor, PaydUp Funeral Home. Remember, if it’s not PaydUp, then your next funeral is on us!
This is the 2036 presidential debate between Donald Demouth and Pamala D. Hatchet. As usual our guest has agreed to the rules sanction by the Presidential Firing Squad. There will be one minute to answer the questions and thirty seconds for rebuttal. We ask that our audience do not clap during the candidate’s responses because it might piss off the people who have concealed carry permits.
So, the candidates have flipped a coin to see who goes first. Ms. Hatchet won and will have the opening statement…
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We Tired of Dat Stuff

When the Constitution was ratified by the states in 1788, senators were chosen by state legislators. Each state was given two senators, regardless of their size. They chose to give the states two senators because Connecticut was feeling some kinda way about larger states having more representation than the smaller states. It was called the “Great Compromise of 1787 and was proposed at the Constitutional Convention of 1887. This convention also set up our bicameral legislature, that is having a Lower and Upper House. The Lower House being the House of Representatives and the Upper House, the Senate. Now this was some bullshat in that they set it up so that candidates from the lower house would be selected by the voters, while candidates or the upper house would be selected by the state legislators and elected by the lower house. That meant you could be elected a congressman and go directly to being a senator without being elected by the people in your state. You might ask what’s wrong with that? Well, you could end up with a Senate where almost everybody is from Deep Red Mud, Alabama. You see at that time the South had a lot more people than the North because most people coming during the 1600s and 1700s were farmers or had trades that supported farming. The warm temperatures and fertile soil were perfect for growing cash crops like cotton, sugar and rice. With the importation of enslaved people to work these large plantations, their population grew exponentially.
Around the latter part of the 1700’s, the North began to overtake the South in population due to European immigration. Also, they were really getting down with the nasty up North because they had nothing else to do. There was little work, and crime was rampant. By 1790 according to the first census, the population in the North was 1.9 million, while the south registered 1.7 million. By 1860, the population in the North was a staggering 23 million. Only 9 million people live in the South, and that’s including the enslaved individuals. The larger population in the North during the Civil War is one of the reasons the North won, else I would probably be the main character in 12 Years A Slave. Part 2.
Me: “Sir I am not a slave!! My name is Thom…”
Massa: ( Slaps every bit of it out of me..) “Yo’ name is Betty… Get this naggar in the wagon…”
They were rotten to the core back then. Anywho, makes you wonder what happened after 1790 down South… I mean with the population and all plateauing … doesn’t look like anybody was getting any down South… except maybe the Massa…
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Missy: (Knock! knock! knock!) Who be there this time of night?!!
Massa: It’s yo’ Massa and I got you a hot biscuit and some boiled chicken beaks… open the door and let me in… I just wanna talk…
Missy: Oh My Gawd!!
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Now you know I am not going to let that story end like that… “It was late at night, so it was dark in the cabin. Missy asked the Massa not to light the candle, but just take off his clothes and get in the bed. The Massa took off his clothes, got into bed and snuggled up… “Massa, I sure would like a piece of that biscuit…” The Massa was mad, but he leaned over to light the candle on the bedstand where he had put the food. The room glowed and as his eyes adjusted, he saw someone standing by the door… It was Missy!! If that was Missy… who was in the bed with him!!? He turned and pulled the blanket back!!
IT WAS HIS WIFE!! SHE GRABBED HIM BY THE NECK!!… and told Missy to leave. It was a setup. The next day, Missy was given her freedom papers. She moved to New York, opened a soul food restaurant and lived happily ever after. As for the Massa… well as the story goes, if you go down to the old slave cabins late at night and listen very carefully… you can still hear the ghosts arguing… “STOP HONEYBUNCH!! STOP!! PUT THAT DOWN!!” “NAW MFER!! NAW!!
Now let’s get back to the story…
So, as I was saying the North had the larger population after 1790, but before then the South had the larger population. Because of the disparity in populations, a compromise in was struck in 1787 so that the Upper House, also known as the Senate, would have just two representatives from each state. It was called the Great Compromise of 1787. Some seventy years later, Lincoln and Douglas would try to win the Illinois Senate seat for their respective parties. Lincoln for the Republicans and Douglas for the Democrats. The winner would be decided by the House of Representatives. At the time Lincoln was in the House of Representatives and Douglas was the incumbent in the Senate. It was 1858. In just two years, a war which would claim the lives of more than 600,000 people, two percent of the population would be fought over slavery. The seven debates between these two men would turn out to be some of the nastiest, most hostile political confrontations in American history. The debates were about slavery and whether it should be allowed into the new territories.
Now, although there were seven scheduled debates, both Lincoln and Douglas missed a couple of them, leaving only one man to talk his shat. So, we all know about Lincoln and what his stand was. He was an abolitionist. Although he wanted to see enslave people free, he said several times, that he did not think blacks were equal to whites in intelligence or morals. The only reason he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation was that the North was getting ready to say faque it… The toll in human life was staggering and most of the Union and Confederate generals war tactics was the same militaries had been using for the last 200 years. We know it as the direct frontal assault… march yo’ men directly into the line of fire and let them “earn the honor”… while we sit back and strategize.
Anywho, so yeah, the North was getting ready to give the Rebs all the ropes and sheets they wanted, and then they were going to call it day. Three things stopped them. The first was the Union victory at Antietam. It wasn’t really a victory in every sense of the word, because the Union lost more men than the Confederates. However, percentage wise the Confederates lost more men. Thirty-one percent of their army was destroyed. It was the victory Lincoln sought after a series of humiliating defeats by the Confederates. The battle of Antietam was in September 1862. He issued the Emancipation in January 1863. The other two battles were Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought on US soil. There were over 50,000 casualties in that battle. Now Vicksburg wasn’t actually a battle. It was more like a siege. The racist there swore to gawd the only way Grant was going to get Vicksburg was over everybody’s cold dead body! Grant and his men camped outside of the city and bombed it mercilessly with cannon fire. After 47 days of ducking cannonballs, drinking horse pee, and eating grilled rat, they started to know something. They gave it up on July 4, 1863.
Anyway, that’s a little bit of Lincolns story, he was on our side more or less, but what about Douglas?
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Moderator: Ms. Hatchet, your opening statement please.
Hatchet: Thank You. My fellow Americans today you will be given a choice. A choice between good and evil, a choice between freedom and oppression, a choice between a fine ass, top notch baller like me and that stank old decrepit limp dic…
Moderator: Thank you, Ms. Hatchet!! Mr. Demouth… your opening statement please.
Demouth: My fellow Americans… Ms. Hatchet has talked about choices… well there is really only one choice… You can choose me… or that nagger…
Audience: WOW!!!
Moderator: “MR. DEMOUTH!! WE AIN’T HAVING NONE OF THAT!!!” Ms. Demoff?
Demoff: Ms. Hatchet, as you know, the Supreme Court has just struck down Paddle after fifty years of precedent. More than eighty percent of Americans supported Paddle. As president what would you do to restore the protections Paddle afforded?
Ms. Hatchet: Well first me and a couple of my boys would wait outside for them… and when they came out… I’d snatch them robes off and take my Billy club out and uh…. I mean we would talk about it, and I would see if we could change their minds…
Demoff: Thank you! Mr. Demouth?
Demouth: I’d round up all the Nagger’s and Mexicans and give them birth control… that’s the problem… They bred like….
Moderator: Thank you sir!! Mr. Demouth, this question is also for you… At your last campaign stop, you said “Criminals belong in jail and if elected the first place me and Hell’s Devils are going to is Chicago.” Hells Devils are a biker gang and not law enforcement… why would you take them to Chicago and not law enforcement?
Demouth: Oh, you ain’t heard the saying… “Naggers may think they got the last laugh… but bikers kick a lot of black azz…!!!”
Audience: BANG!! BANG!!… BANG!! BANG!!!
Moderator: EVERYBODY GET DOWN!! GET DOWN!! SOMEBODY IS SHOOTING!! MR. DEMOUTH THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!! THERE IS NO PLACE FOR THAT HERE!! I HAVE TOLD YOU BEFORE!!
MS. HATCHET… YOUR REBUTTAL…!!!
Ms. Hatchet: 409 MAIN STREET, WASHINGTON DC, APT 6B…!!!
Demouth: Wait!! What!!??
Moderator: FOLKS, WE WILL BE BACK RIGHT AFTER THESE MESSAGES!!
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Side of Yo Mouth

So, history paints a picture of Stephen Douglas as a patriot. He wasn’t so much against slavery as he was for states’ rights and democracy. Yeah, I heard that before… like the time they offered me a supervisor’s job sanding lion asses and telling me the benefits included health insurance… yeah right…
Anywho, Douglas was a lowdown bottom feeding racist. So, there were seven debates in all. The first debate was held in Ottawa, Illinois, and centered around a principal called “Popular Sovereignty.” Popular Sovereignty was the territories right to determine if it would come in as enslaved or free. There were five territories at the time and they were California, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon and Minnesota. The biggie on the list was the California territory. Under the compromise it had enter the Union as a free state. The racist wanted California bad because gold had been discovered there. All they could think of was grabbing a bunch of naggers with shovels, going to California and getting their money on. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Douglas brought up the Compromise in his first debate saying that the admission of California was an example of popular sovereignty, forgetting to mention that in exchange for admitting California as a free state, the republicans would have to enhance the Fugitive Slave Act. At the time the Fugitive Slave Act was only enforceable in the states already admitted to the Union. The compromise meant that slave catchers could now go into the territories and capture escaped enslaved people. However, the reality of it was if they couldn’t find any, they would take free blacks and enslave them… “Yo’ name is Toby!!”
The second debate was held in Freeport, Illinois. So, you ever seen a video meme where somebody does something stupid like jump into a tiger cage with a bag full of McDonalds hamburgers to feed them? Then somewhere the words “And That’s When He Knew He Fu*ked Up.” scroll across the screen? Well, that’s what happened to Douglas at the second debate.
Douglas back something called the Freeport Doctrine. The doctrine said that any territory could keep slavery out if that’s what they wanted to by not passing laws favorable to slavery. The federal government stand was they didn’t have the authority to exclude or include slavery as they never passed any legislation protecting enslaved people one way or another. Of course, every hair on every racist chest in Congress uncurled. Douglas would later run for the presidency and his backing of the Freeport Doctrine would come back to haunt him. You see he lost the support of the Republicans by backing Popular Sovereignty, which said the territories had the right to enslave if the majority back it. He lost Southern support by backing the Freeport Doctrine, which said slavery could be excluded from any territory by the refusal of the people living in that territory to pass laws favorable to slavery. Put another way, you could have one town in a territory that prohibited slavery and another town in the same territory that embraced slavery, whereas in Popular Sovereignty if the majority of the territory backed having enslaved people, well that would be the law of the territory.
The next debate was in Jonesboro, Illinois, not much was said about this debate, and it seemed that Lincoln scored the most points by bringing up Bleeding Kansas. Kansas was where John Brown cut off a few racist heads and had to leave immediately for Missouri. No… I’m not exaggerating!! John Brown carried a broadsword, and he literally was cutting off heads with it! Now, I’m not gonna condone the shat… but I understand. A really nasty deep south red mud racist can make you mad as hell and you could lose yo mind up in there… up in there…
The next debate in Charleston, Illinois, was one in which the racist pulled them down and showed every bit of it… They put up a banner that read “Negro equality” with a picture of a white man, a negro woman, and a mixed-race child. Now we know that was not what they were really afraid of… If someone would have put up a banner of a black man, a white woman, and a mixed-race child, then toes would have been dangling all over Illinois! It was at this debate that Lincoln feared for his very life I believe. He cleaned up that abolitionist shat so that it was nice, shiny and palatable to the racist by saying wait a minute fellows…
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
Even so Douglas threw it out there… ” That’s bullshat!! He’s a nigg*r lover!!” Okay he didn’t say it like that, but he did say that Lincoln had an ally in Frederick Douglass in preaching abolition doctrines and that Frederick Douglass told “all the friends of negro equality and negro citizenship to rally as one man around Abraham Lincoln. They say, when they asked for Lincoln’ response… he was nowhere to be found… Okay, that’s not true, Lincoln response was, “”I tell you very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship.” Oh Massa!!
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Moderator: Welcome back to the presidential debate between Donald Demouth and Pamala D. Hatchet. Security you may take the gag off Mr. Demouth… I think the next question goes to Ms. Hatchet. (Ring… ring… ring…) I’m sorry audience, this has never happened before. Hello? Yes he’s here… Uh huh… Okay hold on… Mr. Demouth, its the concierge desk at your apartment. They say there is a man there who has a delivery for you, but he has been given strict orders to leave it in your apartment…
Demouth: What is it?
Moderator: What is it? Uh huh… uh huh… He can’t tell because its wrapped upped… uh huh.. uh huh… He said the man said he is sure you will get a real bang out of it….
Demouth: Okay… tell him to let him in and put the package on the bar.
Moderator: Tell him to put it on the bar… Okay, now where were we? Oh yes, Ms. Hatchet you have the next question… There is an epidemic of drug use in our country, drug lords and cartels kill, murder and rape at will!! Just yesterday they blew up the current president’s car… luckily, he wasn’t in it!! What will a Hatchet administration do to fight it?
Ms. Hatchet: Well, a Hatchet administration will… can you blur my face…? now lower the lights… Well we will…
Moderator: Ms. Hatchet… Can you speak up….? why are you whispering….
Demouth: I’ll tell you why she whispering!! She doesn’t have a plan!! My administration is going to legalize drugs!! Take the drug dealers right out of it. If you want a pound of smack… I say why not!!
Moderator: Ms. Hatchet, would you like a rebuttal?
Ms. Hatchet: Yes, I’ll bet he’s high right now!! That’s why he talking so much stuff… Whoever named you Demouth, sure know what they were doing!!
Demouth: Yeah, I might be high but at least I not a nagger!!
Audience: WOW!!!!
Moderator: Mr. Demouth…? Security do we still have the gag…?
Ms. Hatchet: I’m so tired of this racist!! I’m not taking any more… I’m through…
Demouth: Yeah, run!! So, you see America, no one talks more smack than me… Smack is my middle name!! She is running around talking about she is a baller!! I’m the only baller on this stage!! When you go to the polls, vote for a winner!! Vote for Demouth!!
Moderator: There you have it folks. That’s the end of the presidential debate between Donald Demouth and Pamala D. Hatchet. Thanks for joining us this evening and remember to stay tuned for your regularly broadcast news show coming up next.
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There were two debates between Douglas and Lincoln, that were of no particular note. They occurred in Galesburg and Quincy, Illinois. Now when I say of no particular note, I am just saying they were basically rehashing the same things over. Douglas kept hitting Lincoln over the head because he brought up Jefferson’s, all men are created equal,” and Douglas kept saying, “I thought you said black and white folks aren’t equal last week…”
At the last debate in Alton, Illinois, each man knew this would be his last chance to get his vision out. The newspapers had been carrying details of the previous debates and it was a dead heat as far as the congress was concerned. Now as I said, Douglas kept hitting him with… ” So, you up here on this stage saying that nagger over there in the ragged clothes, carrying that sack of cotton behind his Massa, is the same as a gawd fearing white man? That he is equal to me… that he is equal to you? Is that what you are saying Abraham?” Now those are not his precise words, I am just giving you the gist of the narrative.
For Lincoln it was sink or swim… At this time in his career, he didn’t have the vision of an America where all men were equal. Hell, he didn’t have vison at all. He just wanted to be a Senator and to do that he had to make everybody happy. He said…
“The authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They meant to set up a standard maxim for the free society which should be familiar to all…. constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.” 
I’ll say one thing for Lincoln, if he was born in our time, he would be one of the best rappers or R&B songwriters in the country. The dude had a way with words, but as flowery as its sounds, the bottom line was black people are inferior to white people. Now to be fair, Lincoln did change his mind after spending a couple years in office. After all the suffering and loss of life in the Civil War, he finally got it… “All men are created equal.”
Later when the two men faced off in the presidential race of 1860, Lincoln won by the thinnest of margins. Matter of fact he had to sneak into Washington because of the death threats.
The following year in 1861, Douglas died at the age of 48 from Typhoid fever. He is buried at the Stephen Douglas Monument Park in Chicago. It is part of the Douglas community which was named after him.
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Later that evening….
Ms. Hatchet: Honey turn on the news…
TV: We have breaking new!! Earlier this evening police raided the home of Donald Demouth and found over two kilos of heroin. Police say an anonymous caller phone in a tip that Demouth was one of the biggest drug dealers in the city. Demouth is currently running for president. Let’s go to our reporter on the scene Tom Tellit… Tom what do you have?
Tom: Well, they say they have a pretty good case and that they are expecting to get a conviction. Police caught Mr. Demouth red handed opening the drugs which were on his bar. We taked to the DA who was on the scene and this is what he had to say.
DA: Drug dealing in this city will not be tolerated. Today we removed a scourge to our city!!
Tom: Sir what is the penalty for that amount of drugs?
DA: Two hundred years…
Tom: You seem pretty sure of a conviction… can you tell us more?
DA: Not only did we catch the perp with the drugs, but we have him admitting to his crime!! Captain, play the tape…
Tape: “If you want a pound of smack… I say why not!! Smack is my middle name!! I’m the only baller on this stage!!”
Tom: Thank you sir… now back to you…
Ms. Hatchet: You can turn it off now… Are you sure nobody recognized you?
Honey: No, I wasn’t wearing my uniform… I changed clothes in the police car out of my Captain’s uniform silly…
Ms Hatchet: Good night baby…
Honey: Good night baby….

Well that our story about the Lincoln-Douglas debates. If you would like to know more, you can check out this link.

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