(5) Tree Line

Lincoln helpfully lays out his thesis in the first paragraph of the "House Divided" speech, and it's pretty clear what his argument is. He also goes through the evidence for his argument step by step. (Thanks, Honest Abe.)

However, to really understand the speech you need to have some background information on the events and people he's talking about—he makes a lot of references, sometimes very quickly, which would be easy if you were alive in the 1850s. He can also get a little complex with his sentence structure.

But overall? It's a tad antique, but this is a political speech. He wants his audience to understand him. And lucky for you, we're here to help out with all the archaic 1850s history stuff.