Lincoln's Principled Pragmatism
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Stephen Douglas was re-elected to his third term as Illinois' Senator in 1858, beating Abraham Lincoln in a tight election.
Douglas supported popular sovereignty, "the doctrine under which slavery in the territories was to be determined by the settlers of the region (Ecelbarger, 28)." This countered the Dred Scott v Sanford decision of 1857 which said, basically, that slavery was permitted throughout the territories. In 1854 Douglas had pushed through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri Compromise "and opened territories and future states west of the Mississippi River to slavery" (Ecelbarger, 5).
Lincoln saw all this and responded in his own way. He was a member of the new Republican Party, a party which had two wings with divergent views on slavery, one abolitionist and the other supporting popular sovereignty. He saw the need, if this new party was to be a truly national party, to somehow bridge these two points of view with a third point of view that could unite the Republican Party enough for it to indeed elect the next president. While Lincoln wasn't saying it publicly yet, he wanted to be that next president.
In a speech in Chicago in March, 1859, Lincoln placed himself between the two extremes, coming out against slavery, hoping not that the states could decide individually about slavery (popular sovereignty) or that it be allowed everywhere (Dred Scott), but that it "dwindle to extinction" (Ecelbarger,29) naturally.
The real hope of Lincoln's principled pragmatism was, of course, that the nominating Republican convention for the presidential election in 1860 would realize that Douglas' ambiguous position on slavery would make him an "un-Republican" candidate for the 1860 election, leaving the field to Lincoln.
Lincoln's position between the extremes both for and against slavery ultimately won him the nomination. Pragmatism won. So did the country. Not a bad strategy.
References
Ecelbarger, Gary. The Great Comeback. How Abraham Lincoln Beat the Odds to Win the 1860 Republican Nomination. Thomas Dunne Books. 2008.