51�Թ�

In the previous weeks, the candidates had barnstormed across District 14 in their own version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates — but even more bitter.

Also sold at Saturday’s auction was a Lincoln-signed first edition of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which fetched nearly $594,000.

Consider the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Lincoln, as the anti-slavery Republican candidate for an Illinois seat in the U.S.

In the past eight years, the program has produced 128 original songs, including an ambitious work of almost operatic scope called “Lincoln Portrait” — a collection of deeply researched songs highlighting Abraham Lincoln’s speeches and the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

“I learned more about the Lincoln-Douglas debates from the inmates than I did from any book or course,” he told me.