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The article provides an overview of the political debates between Republican Party senate candidate Abraham Lincoln and incumbent Democratic Party Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois during the 1858 campaign for the U.S. Senate. Lincoln believed that a conspiracy led by the Democratic leaders sought to make slavery a national institution and he claimed that Douglas was indifferent about slavery's future. On the other hand, Douglas accused Lincoln of radicalism, of being an abolitionist, and of favoring racial equality.