Chapter XI
The year 1858 is memorable alike in the career of Lincoln and in the political history of the country. It was distinguished by the joint discussions between the two great political leaders of Illinois, which rank among the ablest forensic debates that have taken place since the foundation of the republic. The occasion was one to call out the greatest powers of the two remarkable men who there contested for political supremacy. It was not alone that Lincoln and Douglas were opposing candidates for a high office—that of Senator of the United States: they were the champions and spokesmen of their parties at a critical period when great issues were to be discussed and great movements outlined and directed. It was naturally expected that the winner in the contest would become the political leader of his State. Little was it imagined that the loser would become the leader and savior of the Nation.
On the 21st of April the Democratic convention of Illinois met at Springfield and announced Stephen A. Douglas, then United States Senator, as its choice for another term. June 16 the Republican convention met at the same place and declared unanimously that "Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States Senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas's term of office." For a number of days previous to the meeting of the Republican convention Lincoln had been engaged in preparing a speech for the occasion. It was composed after his usual method—the separate thoughts jotted down as they came to him, on scraps of paper at hand at the moment, and these notes were arranged in order and elaborated into a finished essay, copied on large sheets of paper in a plain and legible handwriting. This was the speech which afterwards came to be so celebrated as the "house-divided-against-itself" speech. Lincoln was gravely conscious of its unusual importance, and gave great care and deliberation to its composition. The evening of June 16—the day of his nomination by the convention—Lincoln went to his office, accompanied by his friend Herndon, and having locked the door proceeded to read his speech. Slowly and distinctly he read the first paragraph, and then turned to Herndon with, "What do you think of that?" Mr. Herndon was startled at its boldness. "I think," said he, "it is all true. But is it entirely politic to read or speak it as it is written?" "That makes no difference," said Lincoln. "That expression is a truth of all human experience,—'a house divided against itself cannot stand.' The proposition is indisputably true, and has been true for more than six thousand years; I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language, that may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times." Mr. Herndon was convinced by Lincoln's language, and advised him to deliver the speech just as it was written. Lincoln was satisfied, but thought it would be prudent to consult a few other friends in the matter, and about a dozen were called in. "After seating them at the round table," says John Armstrong, one of the number, "he read that clause or section of his speech which reads, 'a house divided against itself cannot stand,' etc. He read it slowly and cautiously, so as to let each man fully understand it. After he had finished the reading, he asked the opinions of his friends as to the wisdom or policy of it. Every man among them condemned the speech in substance and spirit, especially that section quoted above, as unwise and impolitic if not untrue. They unanimously declared that the whole speech was too far in advance of the times. Herndon sat still while they were giving their respective opinions of its unwisdom and impolicy; then he sprang to his feet and said, 'Lincoln, deliver it just as it reads. If it is in advance of the times, let us lift the people to its level. The speech is true, wise, and politic, and will succeed now or in the future. Nay, it will aid you, if it will not make you President of the United States.' Mr. Lincoln sat still a moment, then rose from his chair, walked backwards and forwards in the hall, stopped, and said: 'Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the questions from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when this speech should be uttered; and if it be that I must go down because of it, then let me go down linked to truth—die in the advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice; "a house divided against itself cannot stand," I say again and again.' This was spoken with emotion—the effects of his love of truth, and sorrow from the disagreement of his friends."
On the next evening the speech was delivered to an immense audience in the hall of the House of Representatives at Springfield. "The hall and lobbies and galleries were even more densely crowded and packed than at any time during the day," says the official report; and as Lincoln "approached the speaker's stand, he was greeted with shouts and hurrahs, and prolonged cheers." The prophetic sentences which dropped first from the lips of the speaker were freighted with a solemn import which even he could scarcely have divined in full. The seers of old were not more inspired than he who now, out of the irresistible conviction of his heart, said to his surprised and unbelieving listeners:
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 on in 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 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.
Mr. Jeriah Bonham, an old citizen of Illinois, relates that he was present as a delegate at the Springfield convention and heard the famous speech of Lincoln. According to Mr. Bonham, "The speech was prepared with unusual care, every paragraph and sentence carefully weighed. The firm bedrock of principles, the issues of the campaign on which he proposed to stand and fight his battles, were all well considered, and his arguments were incontrovertible. In that memorable speech culminated all the grand thoughts he had ever uttered, embodying divinity, statesmanship, law, and morals, and even fraught with prophecy. As he advanced in this argument he towered to his full height, forgetting himself entirely as he grew warm in his work. Men and women who heard that speech well remember the wonderful transformation wrought in Lincoln's appearance. The plain, homely man towered up majestically; his face lit as with angelic light; the long, bent, angular figure, like the strong oak of the forest, stood erect, and his eyes flashed with the fire of inspiration."
The party that had nominated Lincoln for the Senate was not prepared to endorse his restriction of the coming struggle to the single issue of the slavery question. His friends dreaded the result of his uncompromising frankness, while politicians quite generally condemned it. Even so stanch a friend as Leonard Swett, whose devotion to Lincoln never wavered throughout his whole career, shared these apprehensions. Says Mr. Swett: "The first ten lines of that speech defeated him. The sentiment of the 'house divided against itself' seemed wholly inappropriate. It was a speech made at the commencement of a campaign, and apparently made for the campaign. Viewing it in this light alone, nothing could have been more unfortunate or inappropriate. It was saying the wrong thing first; yet he felt that it was an abstract truth,