Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Fall 2011
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly 31:4 (Fall 2011).
Abstract
While debating Senator Stephen A. Douglas in the fall of 1858, Abraham Lincoln declared the principle of popular sovereignty, as applied to the Kansas Territory, to be "nothing but a living, creeping lie from the time of its introduction till today."1 While Lincoln conceded the right of majorities to rule and to shape policy, he maintained that there were moral limits to this right-a line beyond which democratic majorities could not govern. This view contrasted sharply with that of Douglas, who argued that the ultimate source of authority was the will of the people, and that this authority was unlimited. The morality of democracy, according to Douglas, lay not in any particular result but in the process of decision making itself.2
Comments
Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.