FREEPORT, a city of north-western Illinois, U.S.A., on the Pecatonica river ; the county seat of Stephenson county. It is on Federal highway 20, and is served by the Chicago and North Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific, and the Illinois Central railways. The population in 1920 was 19,669 (88% native white), and was 22,045 in 1930 by the Federal census. It is the trade centre of a farming and dairying district, and has many and varied manufactures, with an output in 1927 valued at $12,170,637. The Illinois Central has extensive repair shops and division headquarters here. A granite boulder marks the historic spot where the famous debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas took place (Aug. 27, 1858) in which Douglas took the position that the people of a territory could exclude slavery through "unfriendly" legislation, and that therefore "it matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide on the abstract question" of the introduction of slavery into free territory. This "Freeport doctrine" greatly weakened Douglas's candidacy for the presidency in the election of 1860. Freeport was settled in 1835; laid out and named Winneshiek in 1836; renamed and made the county seat in 1837; incorporated as a town in 1850, and as a city in