Lincoln-Douglas Debates
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40 free Lincoln-Douglas Debates trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
In the summer and fall of 1858, Abraham Lincoln challenged the most famous senator in America, Stephen Douglas, to a series of face-to-face debates. The two men argued for hours at a time in front of huge crowds, and newspapers carried their words across the country. The contest changed the future of both men, and of the nation. This quiz covers the debates the way a history class does: who the two rivals were, where and how the debates were held, what each man argued about slavery and the western territories, the laws and court rulings behind the argument, and how the campaign shaped the presidential election two years later. It is written for students reviewing for a test, including younger ones meeting the debates for the first time, for teachers who want a ready-made check on the unit, and for anyone curious about the campaign that set the stage for the Civil War. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which woman did both Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln court years before the two men debated in 1858?
Mary Todd
Mary Todd had Douglas among her suitors before she married Lincoln in 1842, so the rivals had competed for a wife long before they competed for a Senate seat.
Q 02How did Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas reach the platform for their 1858 debate at Galesburg's Old Main?
Through a window
Through a window is how both men stepped onto the stage, where the abolitionist-founded school had hung a banner declaring itself for Lincoln.
Q 03Abraham Lincoln mocked a Stephen Douglas argument as soup made by boiling the shadow of which starved bird?
A pigeon
A pigeon that had starved to death, Lincoln said at Quincy, would cast a shadow about as nourishing as Douglas's claim that settlers could still keep slavery out.
Q 04Which nickname did Stephen Douglas, a foot shorter than Abraham Lincoln, carry into their 1858 debates?
Little Giant
Little Giant fit a man of five feet four who dominated the Senate; Lincoln, at six feet four, towered over him on every platform.
Q 05What happened to Stephen Douglas's Senate seat after his 1858 debates with challenger Abraham Lincoln?
He kept it
He kept it, winning a third term by 54 votes to 46 in January 1859, even though Lincoln's side had drawn more votes across the state.
Q 06In which Midwestern state did Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas hold all their 1858 debates for a Senate seat?
Illinois
Illinois hosted every debate, one in each of its congressional districts where the two men had not already spoken.
Q 07Which famous abolitionist did Stephen Douglas name at the Charleston debate as an ally of Abraham Lincoln?
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass, the senator claimed, was telling friends of Black equality to rally around Lincoln, a charge meant to paint Lincoln as a radical.
Q 08The region where Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated at Jonesboro is nicknamed after which country?
Egypt
Egypt, or Little Egypt, was hostile ground for an antislavery man, and Douglas boasted that he would trot Lincoln down there to repeat his views.
Q 09Abraham Lincoln's 1858 warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand borrowed its image from which source?
The Bible
The Bible gave Lincoln the line, from the Gospel of Mark, and Douglas went on quoting the speech back as proof that Lincoln wanted war between North and South.
Q 10By what title, earned in an earlier job, did Abraham Lincoln address Stephen Douglas throughout their 1858 debates?
Judge
Judge was the title, a relic of the seat Douglas took on his state's supreme court in 1841, and Lincoln used it debate after debate instead of Senator.
Q 11How many times did Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas meet for a formal debate during the 1858 Senate campaign?
Seven
Seven debates, each about three hours long, ran from August to October, and crowds of more than ten thousand turned out for several of them.
Q 12Which founding document did Abraham Lincoln argue in 1858, against Stephen Douglas, covered Black Americans too?
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence meant all men, Lincoln held, while Douglas answered that its signers had been speaking of white men alone.
Q 13Which Supreme Court ruling did Abraham Lincoln dare Stephen Douglas to square with letting settlers vote on slavery?
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Q 21Which city hosted the 1860 convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president, where rival Stephen Douglas lived?
Chicago
Chicago gave Lincoln a friendly home crowd, and he won on the third ballot, helped by the fame his 1858 debates had brought him.
Q 22Which doctrine, written into his 1854 law on the territories, did Stephen Douglas defend against Abraham Lincoln?
Popular sovereignty
Popular sovereignty meant letting the white settlers of each territory vote slavery in or out, which Lincoln said would spread it across the nation.
Q 23Which law, written by Stephen Douglas, pulled Abraham Lincoln back into politics to oppose the spread of slavery?
Kansas–Nebraska Act
Dred Scott v. Sandford had held that slavery could not be barred from the territories, so Douglas replied that settlers could simply refuse to pass the laws slavery needed.
Q 14In which state was Abraham Lincoln born in a one-room log cabin, decades before he debated Stephen Douglas?
Kentucky
Kentucky was where Lincoln's life began in 1809, and both debaters were newcomers to the state they fought over: Douglas had come west from New England.
Q 15What carried full reports of the 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas to newspapers across the East?
The telegraph
The telegraph reached everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains by then, so papers far from the prairie could print the speeches soon after, and both men knew they were addressing the nation.
Q 16What did Abraham Lincoln do with transcripts of his debates against Stephen Douglas before the 1860 election?
Published them as a book
Published them as a book in 1860, the transcripts sold well and helped Lincoln win his party's nomination for the White House.
Q 17What did Stephen Douglas do when Fort Sumter was attacked, months after losing the presidency to Abraham Lincoln?
Backed the war effort
Douglas backed the war effort so firmly that he urged Lincoln to call up 200,000 men rather than 75,000, then went home to rally the Midwest before dying that June.
Q 18Who actually chose between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas for the Senate seat they debated over in 1858?
The state legislature
The state legislature picked senators in those days, so Lincoln and Douglas were really campaigning for their parties' candidates for the statehouse.
Q 19What arrangement of speakers defines Lincoln–Douglas debate, the American high school contest named for the 1858 rivals?
One-on-one
One-on-one, like the original pair, the format is also called values debate for its stress on logic, ethics and philosophy.
Q 20In which city did Abraham Lincoln give his House Divided speech on being nominated in 1858 to face Stephen Douglas?
Springfield
Springfield was the state capital, and Lincoln spoke in its statehouse on the evening his party named him, as the only speaker on the bill.
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 let settlers in two new territories decide on slavery, and the anger it stirred in the North gave Lincoln a cause and a new party.
Q 24Which deal barring slavery from northern territories did Stephen Douglas's 1854 law repeal, to Abraham Lincoln's fury?
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise had shut slavery out of lands north of a set line since 1820, and Lincoln called its repeal the first step toward making slavery national.
Q 25In which northern town did Stephen Douglas give Abraham Lincoln the answer that Southern Democrats branded a heresy?
Freeport
Freeport gave its name to the doctrine that settlers could shut slavery out by refusing to pass laws protecting it, a stand that cost Douglas the South in 1860.
Q 26Which change to the Constitution ended the system under which Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas ran for the Senate?
Seventeenth Amendment
The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, let voters choose their senators directly, a reform the Populists had demanded since the 1890s.
Q 27Under which political banner had Abraham Lincoln spent most of his career before facing Stephen Douglas as a Republican?
The Whig Party
The Whig Party was Lincoln's home until it fell apart in the 1850s, and its former members were the swing voters both he and Douglas chased in 1858.
Q 28Which president, a fellow Democrat, was feuding with Stephen Douglas while Douglas debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858?
James Buchanan
James Buchanan had broken with Douglas over admitting a western territory as a slave state, so Douglas fought Lincoln with his own party's president against him.
Q 29Which skill, then called phonography, let reporters capture every word of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858?
Shorthand
Shorthand notes were handed to runners in mid-debate and rushed to the next train, where they were written out in full on the ride to the big-city printers.
Q 30Which news service, then about a decade old, sent the 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates to papers across the East?
Associated Press
The Associated Press, formed by New York dailies in 1846, could send one report to many cities at once, which turned a state race into a national event.