Two days after that debate, newspaper readers were able to read almost every word that was uttered during those three hours that were given to each of the debates.
With no modern recording devices at hand for journalists to use, how did this happen?
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Harold Holzer, Henry Binmore, James Sheridan, Lincoln-Douglas debates, phonographic reporting, Robert Roberts Hitt, short-hand, Stephen Douglass
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (4,379) on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018. Hi, Winter has settled in in a big way in my part of the world. Plenty of time for indoor activities, the most important of which is reading. But that’s not the only one. Some writing and some painting • Read More »
Tags: caricatures, Charles McGrath, crimes against English, Dashiell Hammett, Dirty John, Lew Archer, Lincoln-Douglas debates, New York Times, Philip Roth, Phillip Marlowe, podcasts, private detective, private eye, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Sam Spade, The Plot Against America, true crime podcasts, verbs, watercolor, writing life
Voters at that time did not vote directly for candidates for the U.S. Senate. The race was over who would be elected to the state legislature, which had the power to name the senators from the state. Lincoln lost the election to Douglas not because there was a sudden flood of illegal Irish voters into the electorate but more likely because the incumbent senator began with such a decided advantage in that electoral system.
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, electorate, George McClellan, Illinois, Illinois Central Railroad, Lincoln-Douglas debates, Stephen Douglas, voters, voting, voting fraud