LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/ahousedividedagaOOIinc 
 
M House Divided AgainH 
 Itself Cannot Stand" 
 
"A HOUSE DIVIDED 
 AGAINST ITSELF 
 CANNOT STAND" 
 
 Ug Abraham Hinroln 
 
 THE TEXT OF THIS CELEBRATED SPEECH AS 
 ORIGINALLY WRITTEN, PARAGRAPHED, ITAL- 
 ICIZED & PROOFREAD BY ITS AUTHOR PRINTED 
 IN ITS ENTIRETY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 
 ITS CONTEMPORARY PUBLICATION. WITH AN 
 INTRODUCTION BY DOUGLAS C. MCMURTRIE 
 
 CHICAGO • THE BLACK CAT PRESS • NEW YORK 
 
 I936 
 
<3 
 
 
 (^Acknowledgments 
 
 The subject matter of this first volume in the 
 Lincoln series to be published by the Black Cat 
 Press was chosen with some care, after consideration 
 of a number of possibilities. It is believed the text 
 here presented will prove of interest and value to 
 those interested in Lincoln's life and writings. 
 
 The editor is under obligation for appreciated 
 advice to Mr. Paul M. Angle, librarian of the Illi- 
 nois State Historical Library and one of the leading 
 authorities on Lincoln, and to Mr. Oliver Barrett, the 
 distinguished collector of Lincolniana. He is grate- 
 ful to Hon. Henry Horner, Governor of Illinois, 
 for the generous loan of his apparently unique copy 
 of the Sycamore edition of the "House Divided" 
 speech. And to Dr. M. Llewellyn Raney, the dis- 
 tinguished librarian of the University of Chicago, 
 he is indebted for permission to publish the text of 
 Lincoln's letter to the three men who asked him 
 further to explain the meaning of two statements 
 in the speech here reprinted. Photostats of the 
 Springfield edition of the convention proceedings, 
 from which the text of the speech has been set, 
 were made from the copy in the Illinois State His- 
 torical Library, by the courteous permission of that 
 institution. 
 
 For these many and varied favors "much thanks." 
 
 Douglas C. McMurtrie 
 Chicago, March 6, 1936 
 
••••••••*••••••••••• 
 
 A FTER Abraham Lincoln had been nominated 
 /-\ by the Illinois State Convention of the recently 
 JL JL formed Republican party as candidate for the 
 United States Senate, he delivered a speech which many 
 students of the emancipator's career believe exercised a 
 more important influence upon his subsequent political 
 advancement than any other of his public utterances. 
 Certainly his "House Divided" speech is known, by repu- 
 tation at least, to more people than any other Lincoln 
 address. And properly so, for the then senatorial candi- 
 date timed this — for him — rather radical statement at 
 precisely the right time and place. 
 
 Up until the evening of June 17, 1858, Lincoln had 
 sedulously avoided any public expressions which might 
 brand him as an "abolitionist" and, as a matter of fact, he 
 continued to do so after that evening. But personally he 
 abhorred the institution of slavery and on many occasions 
 had publicly opposed every proposal to extend its domain. 
 But consistently — able politician that he was — Lincoln 
 had been more conservative in his public expressions than 
 we must believe his convictions justified. 
 
 9 
 
Lincoln's political status had just been enhanced by his 
 nomination to oppose the re-election as United States 
 senator from Illinois of Stephen A. Douglas, a successful 
 and distinguished politician. Thus spotlighted, as it were, 
 he had the chance to make a speech which might serve 
 as a keynote to his future career. Lincoln studied the poli- 
 tical horizon with thoughtful care and then wrote out a 
 statement which was later to encourage northern radicals 
 to support him and, at the same time, give the minimum 
 of offense to conservatives. 
 
 As we re-read this celebrated speech today, we cannot 
 escape the conclusion that it was a superlatively adroit 
 political utterance. It was bold, in that it suggested that 
 the institution of slavery should be exterminated through- 
 out the union. But those reading the speech through dif- 
 ferently colored spectacles could have noted that the later 
 arguments were directed primarily against extension of 
 slavery into new territories and the then free states. 
 
 To some, the leading statements must have appeared, 
 at the time, a bit cryptic. We can well sympathize with 
 the three politicians who wrote to Lincoln about a year 
 and a half later, asking him just what he meant by two 
 of the assertions in this speech. Their inquiry evidenced 
 the continuing importance of his 1858 utterance. In reply, 
 Lincoln wrote a characteristic letter, now preserved in 
 the Lincoln Collection of the University of Chicago, 
 which reiterates the original statements but does not go 
 far toward elucidating them. 
 
 Lincoln wrote to his inquirers the following letter: 
 
 10 
 
Springfield, Feb. 14, i860 
 Messrs. O. P. Hale 
 
 J. R. FuLLINWIDER 
 
 & U. F. CORRELL. 
 
 Gentlemen. 
 
 Your letter, in which, among other things, you ask 
 "what I meant when I said this Union could not stand 
 half slave and half free — and also what I meant when I 
 said a house divided against itself could not stand" is 
 received, and I very cheerfully answer it, as plainly as I 
 may be able. You misquote, to some material extent, what 
 I did say; which induces me to think you have not, very 
 carefully, read the speech in which the expressions occur 
 which do puzzle you to understand. For this reason, and 
 because the language I used is as plain as I can make it, I 
 now quote at length the whole paragraph in which the 
 expressions which puzzle you occur. It is as follows: "We 
 are now far into the fifth year since a policy was ini- 
 tiated with the avowed object, and confident promise of 
 putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation 
 of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but 
 constantly augmented. I believe it will not cease until a 
 crisis shall have been reached, and passed. A house divided 
 against itself can not stand. I believe this government can 
 not 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. Either the 
 opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, 
 
 11 
 
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 will become alike lawful in all 
 the states, old as well as new, North, as well as South." 
 
 That is the whole paragraph; and it puzzles me to 
 make my meaning plainer. Look over it carefully, and 
 conclude I mean all I said, and did not mean anything I 
 did not say, and you will have my meaning. Douglas at- 
 tacked me upon this, saying it was a declaration of war 
 between the slave and the free states. You will perceive I 
 said no such thing; and I assure you I thought of no such 
 thing. 
 
 If I had said "I believe this government can not last 
 always, half slave and half free" would you understand it 
 any better than you do? "Endure permanently" and "last 
 always" have exactly the same meaning. 
 
 If you, or any of you, will state to me some meaning 
 which you suppose I had, I can, and will instantly tell you 
 whether that was my meaning. 
 
 Yours very truly 
 
 A. Lincoln 
 
 It is not intended here to undertake any detailed anal- 
 ysis or evaluation of the text of the "House Divided" 
 speech. It is familiar to many and known almost by heart 
 to a multitude of Lincoln enthusiasts. Graphic presenta- 
 tion, through the medium of simple yet trenchant English, 
 have made classic a number of passages in this speech. 
 
 Herndon has told us of the care that Lincoln had taken 
 
 12 
 
in the preparation of his speech, which he "wrote on stray 
 envelopes and scraps of paper, as ideas suggested them- 
 selves ... As the convention drew near, he copied the 
 whole on connected sheets, carefully revising every line 
 and sentence ..." Horace White, who sat near Lincoln 
 during the delivery of the speech, wrote that it was "de- 
 livered from manuscript, and was the only one I ever 
 heard him deliver that way." 
 
 The text as Lincoln polished it into completed written 
 form was in exceedingly short paragraphs, with liberal 
 underlining of words or phrases which the author wished 
 to emphasize in its delivery. The manuscript was turned 
 over to the Republican organ in Springfield, the Illinois 
 State Journal, for publication in its issue of June 18, 1858. 
 This paragraphing and italicization give us, to all intents 
 and purposes, Lincoln's inflection and emphasis as he spoke 
 to the convention that June evening. 
 
 Yet in no edition of Lincoln's works is the speech 
 printed in the form in which the author prepared it for the 
 printer, and in no work about Lincoln is the speech quoted 
 in full. The scholarly Beveridge (vol. ii, p. 576 ff.) comes 
 nearest to presenting the text in its original form, his 
 copious extracts following faithfully the author's explic- 
 itly indicated typographical style. 
 
 The purpose of the present edition of this classic of 
 American political literature is to present the text exactly 
 as Lincoln wrote it, and even proofread it, in the office of 
 the Illinois State Journal, The same setting of type of the 
 speech, plus the other proceedings of the convention, was 
 
 13 
 
then lifted and made up and printed in pamphlet form. 
 From the pages of this pamphlet, the present reprint has 
 been made. 
 
 There was one other contemporary printed version of 
 the "House Divided" speech. O. P. Bassett, the editor of 
 the True Republican of Sycamore, Illinois, went home 
 from the convention and printed the text in the form of a 
 sextodecimo pamphlet of sixteen pages. Since this con- 
 tained Lincoln's speech only, without the other proceed- 
 ings of the convention, the bibliographer must regard it as 
 the first separately printed edition. 
 
 But a single copy of this pamphlet is known to me: that 
 in the private collection of Hon. Henry Horner, Governor 
 of Illinois, who has generously loaned it to me for examin- 
 ation and photostating. There are a number of differences 
 in text between the Sycamore and the Springfield printings 
 of the speech. After comparing them very carefully, how- 
 ever, the conclusion seems to me inescapable, that the Syca- 
 more printer was using as copy a clipping from the Illinois 
 State Journal, making a number of errors in the course 
 of resetting. 
 
 There are obviously, for example, a number of "outs," 
 in proofreader's parlance. The position of one paragraph 
 of four lines is transposed. "U. S." in the Springfield ver- 
 sion becomes "United States" in the Sycamore printing, 
 while "thirteen hundred thousand" in the former appears 
 as "1,300,000" in the latter. 
 
 On the other hand, the paragraphing and italicization 
 of the Springfield printing is followed faithfully in the 
 
 14 
 
SPEECH 
 
 HON. ABRAM LINCOLN, 
 
 BIUJELICA3J STATE C0VT1KTI0V 
 June 16, 1858. 
 
 . ■ Ttm result U not doobtrck We shall z>o4 WV— d 
 
 Syoamore. 
 
 o. p. BAsasrr, pr, taue republican o??ics 
 
 li©58. 
 
Sycamore booklet. This could have occured only if the 
 compositor were following reprint copy or — as seems 
 highly unlikely — working from manuscript edited exactly 
 like the original which Lincoln supplied to the editor of 
 the Illinois State Journal. Toward the end of the booklet, 
 italics were not so regularly used, but this was doubtless 
 due to a failure in the supply of italics in the face of such 
 extraordinary demand. 
 
 On the basis of the evidence, any experienced printer 
 would conclude that the Sycamore compositor was setting, 
 with none too great accuracy, from the speech as it appeared 
 in the newspaper. As the differences are thus not textually 
 significant, it was concluded that there would be no point 
 in printing also in this volume the text of the rare Syca- 
 more booklet. 
 
 For the benefit of bibliographers, however, a facsimile 
 of the title page is here shown, in the size of the original. 
 
 Without further delay, therefore, on the part of the 
 editor, the reader is presented with the text of the "House 
 Divided" speech in the form in which Abraham Lincoln 
 intended it should be read. 
 
 16 
 
•••••••••*•••••••••• 
 
 Gentlemen of the Convention: 
 
 i 
 
 F we could first know 
 where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then 
 better judge what to do, and how to do it. 
 
 We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was 
 initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, 
 of putting an end to slavery agitation. 
 
 Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has 
 not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented. 
 
 In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have 
 been reached and passed — 
 
 "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. 
 
 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 
 
 *7 
 
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. 
 
 Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 
 
 Let anyone who doubts, carefully contemplate that 
 now almost complete legal combination — piece of machin- 
 ery so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, 
 and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only 
 what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well 
 adapted; but also, but let him study the history of its 
 construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, 
 to trace the evidences of design, and concert of action, 
 among its chief bosses, from the beginning. 
 
 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 pro- 
 hibition. 
 
 Four days later, commenced the struggle, which ended 
 in repealing that Congressional prohibition. 
 
 This opened all the national territory to slavery; and 
 was the first point gained. 
 
 But, so far, Congress only, had acted; and an indorse- 
 ment by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, 
 to save the point already gained, and give chance for more. 
 
 This necessity had not been overlooked; but had been 
 provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument 
 of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called "sacred right 
 of self government," which latter phrase, though expres- 
 sive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so 
 
 18 
 
perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just 
 this: 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: rr 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, sub- 
 ject only to the Constitution of the United States" 
 
 Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of 
 "Squatter Sovereignty," and "Sacred right of self gov- 
 
 ernment." 
 
 "But," said opposition members, "let us be more specific 
 — let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the 
 people of the territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," 
 said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the 
 amendment. 
 
 While the Nebraska bill was passing through congress, 
 a law case, involving the question of a negro's freedom, 
 by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him, first 
 into a free state and then a territory covered by the con- 
 gressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long 
 time in each, was passing through the U. S. Circuit Court 
 for the District of Missouri, and both Nebraska bill and 
 law suit were brought to a decision in the same month of 
 May, 1854. The negro's name was "Dred Scott," which 
 name now designates the decision finally made in the case. 
 
 Before the then next Presidential election, the law case 
 
 19 
 
came to, and was argued in the Supreme Court of the 
 United States; but the decision of it was deferred until 
 after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trum- 
 bull, on the floor of the Senate, requests the leading advo- 
 cate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the 
 people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slavery 
 from their limits; and the latter answers, "That is a ques- 
 tion for the Supreme Court." 
 
 The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the 
 indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second 
 point gained. — The indorsement, however, fell short of a 
 clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand 
 votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and 
 satisfactory. 
 
 The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as 
 impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the 
 weight and authority of the indorsement. 
 
 The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their 
 decision, but ordered a re-argument. 
 
 The Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision 
 of the court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural 
 address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the 
 forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. 
 
 Then, in a few days, came the decision. 
 
 The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early 
 occasion to make a speech at this capitol indorsing the 
 Dred Scott Decision, and vehemently denouncing all 
 opposition to it. 
 
 The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the 
 
 20 
 
Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that deci- 
 sion, and to express his astonishment that any different 
 view had ever been entertained. 
 
 At length a squabble springs up between the President 
 and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question 
 of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was 
 not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and 
 in that squabble the latter declares that all he wants is a 
 fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether 
 slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand 
 his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted 
 down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as 
 an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the 
 public mind — the principle for which he declares he has 
 suffered much, and is ready to suffer to the end. 
 
 And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any 
 parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle, 
 is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. 
 Under the Dred Scott decision, "squatter sovereignty" 
 squatted out of existence — tumbled down like temporary 
 scaffolding — like the mould 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. His late joint 
 struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton 
 Constitution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska 
 doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the right 
 of a people to make their own constitution — upon which 
 he and the Republicans have never differed. 
 
 The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in con- 
 
 21 
 
nection with Senator Douglas* "care not" policy, consti- 
 tute the piece of machinery, in its present state of ad- 
 vancement. 
 
 The working points of that machinery are: 
 
 First, that no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, 
 and no descendant of such slave can ever be a citizen of 
 any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. 
 
 This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in 
 every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of 
 the United States Constitution, which declares that — 
 
 "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privi- 
 leges and immunities of citizens in the several States." 
 
 Secondly, that "subject to the Constitution of the 
 United States," neither Congress nor a Territorial Legisla- 
 ture can exclude slavery from any United States territory. 
 
 This point is made in order that individual men may 
 fill up the territories with slaves, without danger of losing 
 them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of 
 permanency to the institution through all the future. 
 
 Thirdly, that whether the holding a negro in actual 
 slavery in a free State, makes him free, as against the 
 holder, the United States courts will not decide, but will 
 leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State the 
 negro may be forced into by the master. 
 
 This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but, 
 if acquiesced in for a while, and apparantly indorsed by 
 the people at an election, then to sustain the logical con- 
 clusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do 
 
 22 
 
with Dred Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other 
 master may lawfully do with any other one, or one thou- 
 sand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free State. 
 
 Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, 
 the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate 
 and mould public opinion, at least Northern public opin- 
 ion, to not care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. 
 
 This shows exactly where we now are; and partially 
 also, whither we are tending. 
 
 It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, 
 and run the mind over the string of historical facts already 
 stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mys- 
 terious than they did when they were transpiring. The 
 people were to be left "perfectly free" "subject only to the 
 Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, 
 outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was 
 an exactly fitted nitch for the Dred Scott decision to 
 afterwards come in, and declare that perfect freedom of 
 the people, to be just no freedom at all. 
 
 Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right 
 of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly 
 enough now, the adoption of it, would have spoiled the 
 nitch for the Dred Scott decision. 
 
 Why was the court decision held up? Why, even a 
 Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the Presi- 
 dential election? Plainly enough now, the speaking out 
 then would have damaged the "perfectly free" argument 
 upon which the election was to be carried. 
 
 Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the in- 
 
 23 
 
dorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? Why the 
 incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the 
 decision? 
 
 These things look like the cautious patting and petting 
 a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is 
 dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. 
 
 And why the hasty after indorsements of the decision 
 by the President and others? 
 
 We can not absolutely know that all these exact adap- 
 tations are the result of preconcert. 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 — Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, 
 for instance — and when we see these timbers joined to- 
 gether, and see they exactly make the frame of a house 
 or a mill, all the tenons and mortices 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 can see the place in the 
 frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece 
 in — in such a case, we find it impossible to not believe 
 that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all under- 
 stood one another from the beginning, and all worked 
 upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first 
 lick was struck. 
 
 It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, 
 the people of a State as well as Territory, were to be left 
 "perfectly free 9 ' "subject only to the Constitution." 
 
 24 
 
Why mention a State? They were legislating for terri- 
 tories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people 
 of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution 
 of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged 
 into this merely territorial law? Why are the people of a 
 territory and the people of a state therein lumped together, 
 and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as 
 being precisely the same? 
 
 While the opinion of the Court, by Chief Justice Taney, 
 in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all 
 the concurring Judges, expressly declare that the Consti- 
 tution of the United States neither permits Congress nor 
 a territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any United 
 States territory, they all omit to declare whether or not 
 the same Constitution permits a state, or the people of a 
 State, to exclude it. 
 
 Possibly, this was a mere omission; but who can be 
 quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into 
 the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people 
 of a state to exclude slavery from their limits, just as 
 Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf 
 of the people of a territory, into the Nebraska bill — I ask, 
 who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted 
 down, in the one case, as it had been in the other. 
 
 The nearest approach to the point of declaring the 
 power of a State over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. 
 He approaches it more than once, using the precise idea, 
 and almost the language too, of the Nebraska act. On 
 one occasion his exact language is, "except in cases where 
 
 25 
 
the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United 
 States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of 
 slavery within its jurisdiction." 
 
 In what cases the power of the states is so restrained by 
 the U. S. Constitution, is left an open question, precisely 
 as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of 
 the territories was left open in the Nebraska act. Put that 
 and that together, and we have another nice little nitch, 
 which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme 
 Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the 
 United States does not permit a state to exclude slavery 
 from its limits. 
 
 And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of 
 "care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up" 
 shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise 
 that such a decision can be maintained when made. 
 
 Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being 
 alike lawful in all the States. 
 
 Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably com- 
 ing, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the 
 present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. 
 
 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. 
 
 To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is 
 the work now before all those who would prevent that 
 consummation. 
 
 That is what we have to do. 
 
 26 
 
But how can we best do it? 
 
 There are those who denounce us openly to their own 
 friends, and yet whisper 7cs softly, that Senator Douglas 
 is the aptest instrument there is, with which to effect that 
 object. They do not tell us, nor has he told us, that he 
 wishes any such object to be effected. They wish us to 
 infer all, from the facts, that he now has a little quarrel 
 with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has 
 regularly voted with us, on a single point, upon which, 
 he and we have never differed. 
 
 They remind us that he is a very great man, and that 
 the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. 
 But fr a living dog is better than a dead lion" judge 
 Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a 
 caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances 
 of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed 
 mission is impressing the "public heart" to care nothing 
 about it. 
 
 A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Doug- 
 las' superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of 
 the African slave trade. 
 
 Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is 
 approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? 
 But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored 
 to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro 
 slaves into the new territories. Can he possibly show that 
 it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be 
 bought cheapest? And, unquestionably they can be bought 
 cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. 
 
 27 
 
He has done all in his power to reduce the whole ques- 
 tion of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as 
 such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade — how 
 can he refuse that trade in that "property" shall be 
 "perfectly free" — unless he does it as a protection to the 
 home production? And as the home producers will prob- 
 ably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a 
 ground of opposition. 
 
 Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
 rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that 
 he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. 
 
 But, can we for that reason, run ahead, and infer that 
 he will make any particular change, of which he, himself, 
 has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action 
 upon any such vague inference? 
 
 Now, as ever, I wish to not misrepresent Judge Douglas' 
 position, question his motives, or do aught that can be 
 personally offensive to him. 
 
 Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on 
 principle so that our great cause may have assistance 
 from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adven- 
 titious obstacle. 
 
 But clearly, he is not now with us — he does not pretend 
 to be — he does not promise to ever be. 
 
 Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted 
 by its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, 
 whose hearts? are in the work — who do care for the result. 
 
 Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered 
 over thirteen hundred thousand strong. 
 
 28 
 
We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a com- 
 mon danger, with every external circumstance against us. 
 
 Of strange, discordant, and even, hostile elements, we 
 gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought 
 the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a dis- 
 ciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. 
 
 Did we brave all then to falter now? — now — when that 
 same enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent? 
 
 The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we 
 stand firm, we shall not fail. 
 
 Wise councils may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, 
 sooner or later the victory is sure to come. 
 
 *9 
 
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