On August 27, 1858, some 15,000 people crowded into Freeport to hear the second of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, a three-hour confrontation in a Senate race whose issues lay at the heart of the growing national struggle over slavery. In an era before television, radio, and the Internet, such rallies were both public entertainment and an essential part of democratic politics, and the Freeport debate followed the pattern of the other seven debates as the candidates set out their positions before a large audience. After answering questions Douglas had asked at Ottawa, Lincoln posed several questions of his own, and the third, known as the Freeport Question, prompted Douglas's reply that became known as the Freeport Doctrine: that the people of a United States Territory could lawfully exclude slavery from its limits before the formation of a state constitution. Although reports of the day do not explain the audience's reaction, Douglas's answer echoed in the 1860 presidential election two years later and gave Freeport and his response there a lasting place in the nation's history.