Lincoln on Democracy

"GOVERNMENT CANNOT ENDURE.HALF SLA VE AND HALF FREE"

Lincoln and the House Divided, 1858 "GOVERNMENT CANNOT ENDURE. HALF SLA VE AND HALF FREE" The House Divided Speech, Springfield, Illinois [JUNE 16, 1858] 105 With this speech, Lincoln closed the Republican state convention that had nominated him for the United States Senate, and launched his campaign against incumbent Stephen A. Douglas on both political and moral grounds. The Republican Chicago Tribune lauded the speech as "logical and masterly . .. a powerful summing up ofthe issues before the people"; Springfield's Democratic paper, on the other hand, criticized one inelegant phrase in the speech, "a living dog is better than a dead lion," sneering: "We have no reason to question Mr. Lincoln's estimation of himself. " Some ofLincoln's own supporters thought the new Senate candidate had gone too far with the House Divided speech. It was "imprudent and impolitic, " one supporter remembered warning, for Lincoln to assume "such a radical position." But Don E. Fehrenbacher has suggested that Lincoln was intentionally seeking through the speech "to polarize public opinion and to elicit a clear-cut decision" on the slavery issue. He believes Lincoln assumed that the South would come to accept the Republicans' position peaceably once they took power. If such was the case, Lincoln overplayed his hand. Mr. PRESIDENT and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently halfslave and half free. 106 LINCOLN ON DEMOCRACY I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let anyone who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination-piece ofmachinery so to speak-compounded ofthe Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also, let him study the history of its construction, and trace, ifhe can, or ratherfail, ifhe can, to trace the evidences of design, and concert of action, among its chief bosses, from the beginning. The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State Constitutions, and from most of the national territory by Congressional prohibition. Four days later, commenced the struggle, which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery; and was the first point gained. But, so far, Congress only, had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained, and give chance for more. This necessity had not been overlooked; but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty, " otherwise called "sacred right ofselfgovernment, " which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if anyone man, choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and Lincoln and the House Divided, 1858 107 regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. " Then opened the roar of...