House Divided Speech: Main Idea
House Divided Speech: Main Idea
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln was nominated to run for the U.S. Senate. When accepting, he didn't thank his mom or The Academy—he told his audience to watch out, because the states are all going to have to allow or prohibit slavery in the very near future.
He went on to say this:
America can't keep going on this way, trying to keep everyone happy (or at least appeased). It clearly doesn't work for us. Don't believe it? The policies of the last decade—primarily the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision—have opened the door by stopping Congress from prohibiting slavery.
The opponent in this particular senatorial race, Stephen Douglas, was one of the creators of the current policy, which had (unintentionally, probably?) led to the breakdown of slavery restrictions. Next stop: no regulation whatsoever.
In essence? Lincoln was grabbing the mic and booming an ominous "Dum dum dummm" into the eardrums of America.
Questions
- What specific events does Lincoln highlight in the "House Divided" speech, and why?
- Why would Lincoln have used the "house divided" metaphor for this speech?
- How does this speech fit into the continuum of the antebellum period and the buildup towards the Civil War?
- Why might Lincoln have chosen this moment to make this speech? What about his current political position would have made these statements appealing?
Chew On This
The "House Divided" speech can be read as eerily prophetic or only mildly prophetic, depending on whether you think the "house" fell down with the outbreak of the Civil War.
Lincoln's speech was just saying what everyone knew, but wasn't willing to admit to themselves, because to do so would mean figuring out a new way to resolve the slavery question.
Quotes
Quote #1
"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. (6-9)
Here's the big kahuna. The quote everyone knows. This one's impressively prophetic, given that the Civil War breaks out less than three years after Lincoln uttered these words, largely as the result of issues he discusses in the speech. Granted, there was a fair amount of division before the Union became "all one thing."
Quote #2
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… (14-16)
Lincoln's talking about the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was passed in January 1854. He seems to be emphasizing how quickly the tables have turned with regards to federal control over slavery's existence. Why would Lincoln focus on this moment given his audience at the convention?
Quote #3
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; helped to carry an election and then was kicked to the winds. (43)
Clever Lincoln doesn't let that house metaphor end with the first few lines. He's illustrating the idea that popular (or "squatter") sovereignty won a lot of people over, but the actual policy was quickly abandoned once it was actually implemented. Poor squatter sovereignty seems to have had a rough time lately.
Quote #4
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…and when we see these timbers joined together and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different 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. (73)
Again with the house metaphor! It's almost like Lincoln is doing this intentionally. How does he use the image of a house here? What point is he trying to make?
Quote #5
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. (89)
Lincoln's driving home the idea that while anti-slavery supporters might think the country was moving towards banning slavery everywhere, in fact the opposite has happened. He mentions Illinois specifically to make it personal for his audience, who definitely didn't want slavery in their neighborhood.