House Divided Speech Springfield, Illinois
June 16, 1858
On June 16, 1858, more than 1,000 Republican delegates met in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse for the Republican
State Convention. At 5 p.m. they chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the U.S. Senate, running against Democrat
Stephen A. Douglas. At 8 p.m. Lincoln delivered this address to his Republican colleagues in the Hall of Representatives.
The title comes from a sentence in the speech's introduction, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," which paraphrases
a statement by Jesus in the New Testament.
Even Lincoln's friends believed the speech was too radical for the occasion. His law partner, William H. Herndon, thought that
Lincoln was morally courageous but politically incorrect. Herndon said Lincoln told him he was looking for a universally known
figure of speech that would rouse people to the peril of the times.
Another lawyer, Leonard Swett, said the speech defeated Lincoln in the Senate campaign. In 1866 he wrote to Herndon complaining,
"Nothing could have been more unfortunate or inappropriate; it was saying first the wrong thing, yet he saw it was an abstract truth,
but standing by the speech would ultimately find him in the right place."
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 half slave and half free.
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 the 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 any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination -- piece of machinery so
to speak -- compounded of the 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,
if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidence of design and concert of action, among its chief architects, from
the beginning.
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.
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.
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 of self government," 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 any one 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, not to exclude it therefrom; but to leave
the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to
the Constitution of the United States."
Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "Squatter Sovereignty," and "Sacred right of self-government."
"But," said opposition members, "let us be more specific -- let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the
people of the territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amendment.
While the Nebraska Bill was passing through congress, a law case involving the question of a negroe's freedom, by reason of
his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free state and then a territory covered by the congressional prohibition,
and held him as a slave, for a long time in each, was passing through the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Missouri;
and both Nebraska bill and law suit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negroe's name
was "Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case.
Before the then next Presidential election, the law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States;
but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the
Senate, requests the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the people of a territory can
constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answers: "That is a question for the Supreme Court."
The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second
point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand
votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory.
The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible, echoed back upon the people the
weight and authority of the indorsement.
The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument.
The Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural
address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever might be.
Then, in a few days, came the decision.
The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the
Dred Scott Decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it.
The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that
decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained.
At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the mere
question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the
people of Kansas; and in that squabble the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people,
and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that
he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition
of the policy he would impress upon the public mind -- the principle for which he declares he has suffered much,
and is ready to suffer to the end.
And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle,
is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision, "squatter sovereignty"
squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding -- like the mould at the foundry served
through one blast and fell back into loose sand -- helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds.
His late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of the original
Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point, the right of a people to make their own constitution, upon
which he and the Republicans have never differed.
The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas's "care-not" policy, constitute
the piece of machinery, in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points
of that machinery are:-
First, that no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any
State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive
the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that:
"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."
Second, that "subject to the Constitution of the United States, " neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature can exclude
slavery from any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories with
slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through
all the future.
Third, that whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State makes him free, as against the holder, the United States
courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the master.
This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at
an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free
State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mold public
opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where
we now are; and partially, also, whither we are tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated.
Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. The people were
to be left "perfectly free," subject only to the Constitution. What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not
then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare
the perfect free freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right
of the people, voted down? Plainly enough now: the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision.
Why was the court decision held up? Why even a Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the presidential election?
Plainly enough now- the speaking out then would have damaged the perfectly free argument upon which the election was
to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the
incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting
of a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty
after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others?
We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed
timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places, and by different workmen-
Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance-and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly matte
the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different l
pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece. too many or too few,-not omitting even scaffolding-or, if a
single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in-in such a case we find
it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning and
all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska Bill, the people of a State, as well as a Territory, were to be left
"perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating for Territories, and not
for or about States. Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but
why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State
therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion
of the court, by Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly
declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial legislature to exclude slavery
from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the
people of a State, to exclude it. Possibly this is a mere omission; but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought
to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just as
Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska Bill-I ask, who can
be quite sure that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it ad been in the other? The nearest approach to the
point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the
precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska Act. On one occasion, his exact language is, "except in cases
where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States the law of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery
within its g jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the United States Constitution is left an open
question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska Act
Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche which we may ere long see filled with another Supreme Court
decisions declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this
may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not wether slavery be voted down or voted up," shall gain upon he public
mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision an be maintained when made.
Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is
probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown.
We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri. are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall
awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of
that dynasty is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. This is what we have to do. How
can we best do it ? There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends and yet whisper us softly, that Senator Douglas
is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all from the fact that he now has a little
quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we
have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted.
But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and tooth. less one.
How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He does not care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the "public heart"
to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the
revival of the African slave trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching ? He has not said so. Does he really
think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves
into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest?
And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole
question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade-how can he
refuse that trade in that "property" shall be "perfectly free"-unless he does it as a protection to the home production?
And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.
Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser today than he was yesterday-that he may rightfully |
change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change,
of which he, himself, has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever,
I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him.
Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability,
I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not now with us-he does not pretend to be-he does
not promise ever to be.
Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends-those whose hands are free, whose
hearts are in the work-who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over
thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with
every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the
four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and
pampered enemy. Did we brave all them to falter now?-now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered,
and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail-if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels
\may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.
Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.
Related Link
The Speech that Changed the World (Harry Jaffa for Claremont Institute)
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