House Divided Speech

Content Warning: The source material and this guide reference the enslavement of Black Americans and the associated racism and prejudice.

“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.”

At the outset of his speech, Lincoln indicates that the priorities and strategy of the Republican Party would be best directed by an honest discussion of what the status quo of the country truly is with respect to slavery and in which direction it is moving. In the course of the speech, Lincoln begins that discussion by stating the current state of affairs under the Dred Scott decision. He continues to say what the implications of that decision may be for the future, and finally, emphasizes the need for determination and unity moving forward.

“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 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.”

Lincoln provides two stark alternatives for the future of the United States: it will be entirely free or entirely slave-holding. This stark contrast between two distinct alternatives is meant to discourage the naive opinion that slavery might endure in part of the Union while part of it remains free under a doctrine such as “popular sovereignty.” In a matter of such moral weight, one side must prevail.

“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, nor 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.’”

The absurdity of Douglas’s position is demonstrated by its simplification. The third man represents a concerned citizen or abolitionist living in another state or territory. Citing the language of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln demonstrates that its intention is to localize the issue of slavery, making it of no concern to a citizen of Massachusetts, for example, what happens in Nebraska.