Lynette Rosen, age 16,of Marion, O:  hio, for her question

HOW MANY LINCOLN DOUGLAS DEBATES WERE HELD?

As part of his unsuccessful campaign to win a seat in the United States Senate in 1858, Abraham Lincoln took part in a series of seven well attended debates with the popular Democratic senator, Stephen A Douglas, who was seeking    and went on to win    his third term in the high office.

Douglas always drew large crowds when he spoke at political meetings, but Lincoln, who was running on the sew Republican Party, had difficulty attracting attention. So Lincoln decided that he would follow Douglas, and speak on the same date schedule. But the backers of Douglas quickly accused him of taking advantage of the senator's popularity.

To solve the problem, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of debates. The senator accepted and debates were held in the Illinois cities of Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy and Alton.

The debates turned out to be the most dramatic part of the election campaign. In addition, Lincoln spoke at more than 60 other political meetings and Douglas spoke at almost 100.

Both Lincoln sad Douglas agreed on most of the major issues of the day. Both were against slavery and both of them wanted to have no additional slave states enter the Union.

But Lincoln wanted slavery barred from the territories while Douglas suggested that the people of the territories should be able to decide the question of slavery for themselves.

During the debates Douglas refused to speak against slavery is the territories, fearing that an antislavery position on his part could break up the Democrats as a national party. Lincoln, however, kept hitting the antislavery position

The Democrats won the campaign of 1858 and Douglas won re-election to the Senate. But the Republican candidates for the legislature had more votes than the Democrats, and Lincoln himself became well known and won much respect.

If Abraham Lincoln had won that U.S. Senate election in 1858, it is almost certain that he would not have been selected as the Republican candidate for President in 1860. And then, of course, he would not have been elected President that year.

It had been Lincoln's goal to reach the Senate, and it is likely that he would have insisted on serving out his term if he had been elected in 1858 .

Lincoln also lost an election in his first try for public service. He ran for a seat in the Illinois Legislature when he was 23 years old in 1832 and was defeated.

In addition, Lincoln also lost out is his first try for the United States Senate. He wanted to enter the race in the election year of 1854, but was not able to win the nomination.

Lincoln did win five elections for two year terns to the Illinois legislature and also served a term from that state in the United States House of Representatives.