The Freeport Doctrine was articulated by Stephen A. Douglas on August 27, 1858, in Freeport, Illinois, at the second of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Former one-term U.S. Representative Abraham Lincoln was campaigning to take Douglas's U.S. Senate seat by strongly opposing all attempts to expand the geographic area in which slavery was permitted. Lincoln tried to force Douglas to choose between the principle of popular sovereignty proposed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which left the fate of slavery in a U.S. territory up to its inhabitants), and the majority decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, which stated that slavery could not legally be excluded from U.S. territories (since Douglas professed great respect for Supreme Court decisions, and accused the Republicans of disrespecting the court, yet this aspect of the Dred Scott decision was contrary to Douglas's views and politically unpopular in Illinois). Douglas responded that, despite the court's ruling, slavery could be excluded from any territory by the refusal of the people living in that territory to pass laws favorable to slavery. Likewise, if the people of the territory supported slavery, legislation would provide for its continued existence.
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Freeport Doctrine in the context of 1860 United States presidential election
A United States presidential election was held on November 6, 1860. The Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin emerged victorious.
In 1860, the United States was divided over the issue of slavery. Four major political parties nominated candidates in the 1860 presidential election. Incumbent president James Buchanan, a Democrat, did not seek re-election. The anti-slavery Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois, for president. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South, but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention put forward former Tennessee Senator John Bell for president. After the 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned without agreeing on a nominee, a second convention nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas as the Democratic presidential candidate. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats. With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president.