Bryant Cottage State Historic Site
The Bryant Cottage State Historic Site is a simple four-room house located in Bement, Illinois in the U.S. state of Illinois. It was built in 1856 and is preserved by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources as an example of Piatt County, Illinois pioneer architecture and as a key historic site in the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates. Francis E. Bryant Few settlers moved to southern Piatt County, in east-central Illinois, until the 1850s and the coming of the railroad. The ground was flat and open, with few trees to provide firewood for winter. Francis E. Bryant arrived in the young town of Bement in 1856 with a small capital, which he quickly reinvested in general business development as a banker and storekeeper. He bought grain from pioneer farmers, and sold them lumber and coal in return. Bryant was a member of the U.S. Democratic Party and a personal friend of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who was running for re-election in 1858. Bryant played an important role in coordinating Democratic support for Douglas during the race. As a Democrat, Bryant was elected twice to the Illinois Legislature. His first term in 1853 was as the representative of Schuyler County. He served again 20 years later in 1873 as a representative of Champaign County, Illinois and Piatt County, Illinois. Stephen A. Douglas As an incumbent member of the U.S. Senate from Illinois in 1858, Douglas had not expected to have to make a case directly to the people. Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution then in effect, members of the federal Senate were chosen by the state legislatures, not by the voters. However, Douglas's central position in the growing crisis of American slavery made the election of 1858 extraordinary. Fervent emotions among both Democrats and members of the newly formed Republican party led to a demand that both candidates for the Senate campaign directly among the people of Illinois. The Republicans nominated Springfield, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln, who wrote to Douglas on July 24, 1858 challenging him to meet and hold a series of nine debates at sites across Illinois. Lincoln renewed this challenge when the two men met in person on the Bement-Monticello road, now Illinois Route 105, on July 29. The campaigning Douglas was at the time going southward to Bement, where he would spend the night in the Bryant Cottage. It was during this one-night stay that Douglas decided to accept most of Lincoln's challenge and debate him seven times. Douglas wrote Lincoln from Bement on the morning of July 30, suggesting that the two men debate in Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton, Illinois. Lincoln accepted these terms in a letter dated July 31. Abraham Lincoln At the time of the Lincoln-Douglas challenge of July 1858, Stephen A. Douglas was an experienced, incumbent U.S. Senator; Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer in private practice with little successful office-holding experience. Illinois Republicans had nominated him to face Douglas because of his skill at making speeches and his ability