A bold and daring folk flocked into the Freeport region about 175 years ago, itching to establish themselves. A mixed ethnicity hauled in with it a diversity of skills and burning ambition. The broad influence of the settlers' European ethics--hard work, frugality, and faith--has persisted through Freeport's maturity. The vast number of innovative industries, coupled with a passion for education and the finer things of life--not to mention a zest for plain old fun--all testify to the city's colorful past. Freeport industries have infiltrated world markets with name brands in windmills, engines, automobiles, tires, batteries, switches, beers, toys, patent medicines, household furnishings, and animal feeds, to name a few. Something is always going on in Freeport. Fueling this are a community college, vibrant public and parochial school systems, churches, service organizations, and a network for artistic tastes with museums, community theater, and concert series.

Wilhelm Wagner (1803-1877), son of Peter Wagner, was born in Dürkheim, Germany. He married Friedericke Odenwald (1812-1893). They had nine children. They emigrated and settled in Illinois. His brother, Julius Wagner (1816-1903) married Emilie M. Schneider (1820-1896). They had seven children. They emigrated and settled in Texas.

From the two-time winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize, a stirring and surprising account of the debates that made Lincoln a national figure and defined the slavery issue that would bring the country to war. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln was known as a successful Illinois lawyer who had achieved some prominence in state politics as a leader in the new Republican Party. Two years later, he was elected president and was on his way to becoming the greatest chief executive in American history. What carried this one-term congressman from obscurity to fame was the campaign he mounted for the United States Senate against the country’s most formidable politician, Stephen A. Douglas, in the summer and fall of 1858. As this brilliant narrative by the prize-winning Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo dramatizes, Lincoln would emerge a predominant national figure, the leader of his party, the man who would bear the burden of the national confrontation. Lincoln lost that Senate race to Douglas, though he came close to toppling the “Little Giant,” whom almost everyone thought was unbeatable. Guelzo’s Lincoln and Douglas brings alive their debates and this whole year of campaigns and underscores their centrality in the greatest conflict in American history. The encounters between Lincoln and Douglas engage a key question in American political life: What is democracy's purpose? Is it to satisfy the desires of the majority? Or is it to achieve a just and moral public order? These were the real questions in 1858 that led to the Civil War. They remain questions for Americans today.

Includes entries for maps and atlases.