Near the corner of Douglas and State Streets in downtown Freeport's historic Debate Square.
Excerpted from a prairie.org article by (
visit link)
"A recent addition to the world of Lincoln statues is the work done by Lily Tolpo. Long known as the wife of the noted Lincoln sculptor, Carl Tolpo, and for her bust of Mary Todd Lincoln, Ms. Tolpo has created a life-sized portrait of both Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas depicting their debate at Freeport, Illinois. Titled "Freeport's Lincoln and Douglas in Debate," it is the only such portrait of both men, together, known to exist.
The sculpture depicts a seated Lincoln listening to a standing Douglas giving his point in the debate. Originally, the concept for this statue was to place the original in Freeport with subsequent castings of the same statue to be located in the six other debate sites around the state. However, the only one that has been dedicated to date, is the Freeport site. That dedication took place on August 27, 1992, the 134th anniversary of the original debate."
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865, during the Civil War period. He is greatly honored by his countrymen. Prior to being elected to the presidency, he debated fellow Illinoisan Stephen A. Douglas in the most famous political debates in American history.
Stephen Arnold Douglas (April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician from Illinois and the designer of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He was a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee for President in the 1860 election, losing to Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in a Senate contest, noted for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. He was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because he was short in physical stature, but a forceful and dominant figure in politics.
About the Lincoln-Douglas debates (
visit link)
"In 1858, the United States was approaching a crisis. Sectional antagonism smoldered between the North and South over the morality of slavery. Adding to the tension was the basic disagreement between the states and the federal government over the principle of popular sovereignty was based on the belief that citizens of a territory had a right to determine their own destiny rather than the Federal Government. As the nation expanded west, the question became what, if any, limits were to be placed on the further extension of slavery.
These issues focused the nation's attention on the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in their contest for the Senate seat from Illinois."
More from the Looking for Lincoln Lincoln-Douglas debate site: (
visit link)
Second Debate • Freeport, August 27, 1858
Six days after their meeting at Ottawa, Lincoln and Douglas met before 15,000 people at Freeport, the northernmost debate site. Lincoln opened, answering seven questions that Douglas had put to him at Ottawa. Lincoln declared, among other things, that it was “the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States territories.” Lincoln then asked Douglas some questions of this own, with Douglas responding in part with what would become known as the Freeport Doctrine: that voters in a territory could decide whether to have slavery or not by passing laws favorable or unfavorable to it."
Stop by and walk the interpretive path, then drop in on the local library next door.