“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.” Lincoln’s ‘House-Divided’ Speech in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.
Lincoln’s speech during his campaign for president was, like many of his observations, both prescient and profound. Lincoln had expressed the feeling that had been fomenting in both the north and the south for almost three decades – that slavery had created a chasm between the two regions, setting the two at odds, and that this untenable situation could not continue much longer.
