Fuller House

The "house divided against itself" (6) isn't just an effective way to start off Lincoln's speech. It's the central metaphor going on in this whole shebang. The "house," of course, is the United States, divided like nobody's business over the issue of the expansion of slavery.

He uses the idea of a house because it's an easily digestible image that everyone can picture. Can you imagine a house where the people can't see eye-to-eye? Maybe you've experienced it yourself. Maybe you've experienced it yourself last Thanksgiving. Maybe you've experienced it every Thanksgiving. And maybe you know that everyone just wants to get out of there as soon as possible.

The building image comes back a few times. Check it out:

Under the Dred Scott decision, "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding; like the mold at the foundry, served through one blast and fell back into loose sand. (43)

Again, Lincoln uses a familiar, tangible image to embody an intangible idea. Nobody really likes the idea of their house falling to bits around them.

Even more obviously, Honest Abe talks about,

…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…and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting…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. (72)

What he's saying is that the current situation was built (like a house) by the actions of men who came before. They worked together, intentionally or unintentionally, to build this divided house that now exists. It didn't just come out of nowhere. Since building houses is definitely something that doesn't happen on accident ("I swear, I tripped and the cottage just sprang up!"), it's an effective use of the metaphor.

Part of the reason Lincoln uses the "house divided" quote in the introduction to his speech is precisely because it works as a metaphor for the entire situation, and can be applied in a few different scenarios to keep proving his point about where America found itself in 1858.

Where did America find itself in 1858? In a dang divided house.