Lincoln was running as the Illinois Republican Party’s candidate to supplant Democratic incumbent Stephen A. Douglas in the U.S. Senate. Both Lincoln and Douglas delivered political speeches throughout Illinois during the campaign of 1858, battling on behalf of their respective parties for candidates up for election to the Illinois General Assembly. At the time, members of the General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate; therefore, the outcomes of the state’s local elections were a critical aspect of Lincoln and Douglas’ race for the U.S. Senate seat. They also eventually debated one another in the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. See 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.

Lincoln did not deliver a campaign speech in Pontiac, Illinois, on August 21. He was instead in Ottawa, where and Douglas engaged in the first of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Lincoln delivered a short speech in El Paso in Livingston County on August 28, but only while waiting to catch a train to a scheduled speaking engagement elsewhere. Douglas spoke in Pontiac on September 2.

Ultimately, in the local elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in Illinois, yet pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General Assembly and Douglas won reelection. Through the campaign, however, and in particular through his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln gained recognition as well as standing within the national Republican Party.