USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Lincoln considered Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas’s concept of “popular sovereignty”-allowing the territories to determine their own policy on slavery-a denial of the responsibility of the Congress to uphold the United States Constitution.

Detailed explanation-2: -In the Springfield speech, Lincoln famously stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” and pointed out the flaws in the popular sovereignty doctrine, which had allowed for the inhabitants of a territory to decide by majority vote whether slavery would be permitted there.

Detailed explanation-3: -Lincoln viewed popular sovereignty, the underpinning philosophy of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, much as Douglas did-as rooted in the principles of the republic. Douglas saw it as the great principle inherent in democracy. Lincoln, however, viewed it as a pernicious subversion of true republicanism.

Detailed explanation-4: -In the summer and the fall of 1858 two of the most influential statesmen of the late antebellum era, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln faced off in a series of debates focused on slavery as they vied for a United States Senate seat representing Illinois.