Who are these guys?
Who are these guys in the pool? Can you identify them?
Can they swim?
(Answers below the fold.)
Here’s the caption from the Chicago Tribune:
Soaked in history
A mural of Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln commemorating their 1858 debates is partially submerged in Mississippi River floodwaters Thursday in Quincy, Ill. (Tribune photo by Michael Tercha / June 19, 2008)
U.S. Sen. Stephen A. Douglas squared off against his old nemesis, neighbor in Springfield, and opponent in the race for U.S. Senator in Quincy, Illinois, on October 13, 1858. Quincy is a key city in Adams County, Illinois – named after John Quincy Adams, perhaps.
Local historians describe the debate:
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were nearing the end of seven grueling debates across Illinois in their campaign for a U.S. Senate seat. Quincy’s Washington Square was the site of the sixth debate.
Slavery was the focus of each debate. The founding fathers had put slavery on the road to ultimate extinction. But a series of events, including Senator Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which replaced geographical limits on slavery with “popular sovereignty” – letting voters decide on it – enabled its spread throughout the country. The measure drew Lincoln, who in 1849 had returned to Springfield and law after a single term in Congress, back into politics.
A local televison station, WGEM, has a DVD for classroom use on the symposium on the debates, held earlier in 2008.
According to the station:
New DVD Features
Full Debate SymposiumIf you missed the February symposium that told the stories of Quincy’s historic role in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, you have an opportunity to see all 19 presentations.
WGEM-Television recorded and produced a DVD of the event.
Click these links for:
A symposium program.
A DVD order form.
Symposium Pictures.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Well, obviously Abraham Lincoln. Is the other Stephen Douglas? I’ll find out in a minute!
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