northern democrats are going to go with stephen douglas. okay. very experienced politician. moderate. on a lot of the key issues that the democratic party holds dear. looks like the guy who has the experience and the broad support to win an election. problem is, you've already split your vote. if you remember -- do you remember in the '90s, when you would have ross perot, he'd be running, and the republicans would just absolutely freak out. ross perot is going to come in the election, siphon off votes. the democrats are like, hey, the more the merrier, come on in. around 2000 is when the democrats had to start to deal with ralph nader and siphon off some of the liberal votes. now what you're seeing is the split in the democratic party which is absolutely going to wrench any sort of bloc vote that's going to give them the majority. when you see a party splintering like this, it's your clear sign that something is seriously wrong. they know what they're doing. these are not idiots. all right. they know what's going on. but they cannot comb up with a compromise they can sleep w

we have stephen douglas representing northern democrats. john breckenridge representing southern democrats, then you have a portion of the country that's still not happen. y. they organize themselves into a political party for this election. they are the constitutional unionists. they are slogan is the constitution as it is, the union as it is. first time i ever read about the constitutional unionists, i was sitting where y'all are now. i always thought of the head in the sand party. great. ya, we got that. it's not working. what's interesting about the constitution al unionists is the more you read about them, the more you'll notice is what they want to do is fragment this vote to the point where it goats thrown into the house. now we can debate it out of the house. get it out of the passions of the american people and debate it among the experts. what they also are are a bunch of wealthy guys who have a heck of a lot to lose if war actually comes from this. if everything falls apart, all right? these are a lot of your wealthy planters who

so we think of them with the exception of the race between abraham lincoln and stephen douglas, that is one race for congress that we do know about the do talk about, the places where they debated, a popular tourist attractions. we've been to virginia. we can't go anywhere without some of those gray and by signs. to know someone fairness to live there. famous battle that happened there. in my famous is the church of the blind teacher. think it's great. they did so it seriously. you'll never find anything. of the spots. >> to questions, are we able to @booktv any -- what parts of the district of the fifth congressional district were supportive of one of the other candidates with a certain segment of society, war less popular, and secondarily any role at all of thomas jefferson and george washington, to begin in the age. >> as a great questions. to the first, that is a great question. what is some people fall on the federalist and some people on the anti federalist. well, to generalize federalist for people who ran days and the mercantile trade, the police said, hey, i can see the bene

but for a variety of reasons, senator stephen a. douglas of illinois, the giant in our portrait there, the little giant introduces legislation which comes to be called the kansas-nebraska act. and what's he up to? well, in part he wants to organize, at least some of that portion, the northern portion, central and northern portion of the louisiana purchase territory. he wants to organize that. why is he so interested in organizing it? variety of explanations here, and i think one shouldn't necessarily, you know, zero in on one. douglas was a devoted unionist and he had been a champion of western development for some time. in his hopes to provide a kind of balance between the north-south conflict that had characterized politics for decades. so definitely douglas is a committed unionist. of course, his unionism -- his commitment to the union dovetails rather nightly and needily with his own particular political ambitions. he's very interested in getting the democratic nomination for the presidency. and he recognizes that as a northern democrat