A Breakdown Of Lincoln’s House Divided Speech Essay, Research Paper

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention.

If 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 the 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.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal

combination-piece of machinery, so as to speak-compounded of the Nebraska

doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the

ma- chinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let him study the

history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the

evidence of design and concert of action among its chief architects, 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

prohibition. 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 indorsement 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 expressive of the

only rightful basis of any government, was so 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:-

“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.”

Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of “Squatter Sovereignty,”

and “sacred right of self-government.” “But,” said opposition members, “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 into a Territory covered by the congressional

prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through

the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska

Bill and lawsuit 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 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 Trumbull,

on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate 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 question 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 reargument. 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 capital, indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all

opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman

letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, 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

quarrel 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 so

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 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. 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 connection with Senator

Douglas’s “care-not” policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state

of advancement. This was the third point gained. 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 Constitution 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 privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.”

Second, that “subject to the Constitution of the United States, ” neither Congress

nor a Territorial legislature 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.

Third, 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, f

acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election,

then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott’s master might

lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other master may

lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand 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 mold public opinion, at least Northern

public opinion, not to 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 mysterious 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 niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the

perfect free freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the

amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down? Plainly

enough now: the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott

decision. Why was the court decision held up? Why even a Senator’s individual

opinion withheld, till after the presidential 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

indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming President’s

advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious

patting and petting of a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is

dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of

the decision by the President and others?

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations 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 together, and see they exactly matte the frame of a house or a

mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and

proportions of the different l 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.

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska Bill, the people of a State, as

well as a Territory, were to be left “perfectly free,” “subject only to the

Constitution.” Why mention a State? They were legislating for Territories, 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 Constitution 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

is 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

ad 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 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 g jurisdiction.” In what cases the power of the States

is so restrained by the United States 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 this and that together, and we have another

nice little niche which we may ere long see filled with another Supreme Court

decisions 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 wether slavery be voted down or voted up,” shall gain upon

he public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision an 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 coming, 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. This is what we have to do. How can we best do it ?

There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends and yet whisper us

softly, that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect

that object. They wish us to infer all from the fact 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 great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted.

But “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 tooth. less one. How can he oppose the

advances of slavery? He does not care anything about it. His avowed mission is

impressing the “public heart” to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas

Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas’s 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. He has

done all in his power to reduce the whole question 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

probably 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 today 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 not to misrepresent

Judge Douglas’s 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 cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to

have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not now with us-he

does not pretend to be-he does not promise ever to 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. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a

common 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

disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all them 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

counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is

sure to come.

Bibliography

Williams, Jeff, The Civil War