Remember this debate take place during the 1850s. Before the Civil War, before Emancipation Proclamation and after Jefferson has been dead for more than 35 years.
The required work will help you.
Who will you be in the debate?
Your character does not have to be an actual historical figure. You can be, for example, journalist, politician, teacher, a domestic servant or a sharecropper. Just make sure that you ground your analysis in academic sources and you demonstrate you have done all the required work by integrating it into your debate positions.
Stay in character for your responses means if you say you are a certain name than each response should have this person’s name or that of the person your are corresponding with in each response is part of the debating.
Also no modern day history facts should be used…in this debate Lincoln is still alive…meaning discussing the Emancipation Proclamation is not appropriate but the rumor of it can be discussed…remember the Emancipation Proclamation was a gradual emancipation document because it only freed slaves in the Confederate states but allowed Union states to still continue slavery.