On August 21, 1858, the first of the famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was held in Washington Square, where ten thousand heard the two candidates debate for a seat in the United States Senate. The debates revolved principally around a single sentence in the Declaration of Independence, with the phrase "all men are created equal" central to Lincoln's argument and serving as his primary evidence for the antislavery intentions of the Founding Fathers. Lincoln dwelled on the Declaration's original premise and declared that there was no reason why the Negro was not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that he was as much entitled to these as the white man. Douglas refused to address the morality of slavery and insisted that the people in individual states should decide the question, a concept he endorsed as popular sovereignty. Lincoln also came to Ottawa several times throughout his life: in May of 1832 Captain Lincoln was mustered out of service in the Black Hawk War at the mouth of the Fox River; he practiced law before the Supreme Court of Illinois at sessions held in the old LaSalle County Courthouse and many times before the LaSalle County courts in downtown Ottawa; in December of 1852 he served there as a claims commissioner for the Illinois & Michigan Canal; and in October of 1856 he appeared in Ottawa as a speaker for John C. Freemont, who sought election as the first Republican presidential candidate. Washington Square was platted as part of the original town plan of Ottawa in 1831 by the Illinois and Michigan Canal Commission.
