BBC Features Knox Expert on Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Above, Douglas Wilson (right) and BBC News Magazine feature on Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Douglas Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln-Studies Center at Knox College, is one of a select group of scholars and experts interviewed recently by the BBC News Magazine for a feature story on this week's Republican presidential debate and how it compared to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858.

The format of the debate between Republican presidential contenders Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman was modeled after the Lincoln-Douglas Debates -- the candidates speaking at length and without moderators. One of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates was held outside Old Main at Knox College, where Wilson has taught and conducted research since 1961.

In 1858, political oratory, epitomized by the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, was a top form of entertainment, Wilson told Daniel Nasaw, a BBC correspondent in Washington, DC. 

"Voters had no television, no Facebook and no movies, so when two prominent orators came to town, people gathered from miles around," Nasaw wrote, based on his interview with Wilson. Wilson and colleague Rodney Davis, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center, recently published the first scholarly edition of the texts of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

In their book on the debates, Wilson and Davis write that the Galesburg debate marked the first time in the campaign that Lincoln took a moral stand against slavery. Lincoln argued that "Douglas could see no wrong in slavery, whereas Lincoln and his follow Republicans contemplated it as a moral, social and political evil, and they looked forward to its end."

Others interviewed by the BBC included David Zarefsky of Northwestern University and James Oakes of the Graduate Center at City University of New York.

Research by Wilson and Davis at the Lincoln Studies Center has revolutionized the field of Lincoln scholarship, staring with their acclaimed book "Herndon's Informants," reminiscences by acquaintances of Lincoln gathered by his law partner William Herndon. Wilson has twice won the Lincoln Prize, the top award in the field, for his books "Lincoln's Sword," and "Honor's Voice."

Wilson and Davis also have analyzed each Lincoln-Douglas debate and discussed their research in "The Real Issue - The Real Debates," a series of podcasts on the Knox College website.