"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.
Whether or not because of his
controversial "house divided" speech, Lincoln was elected to the
presidency, along with the relatively new republican party, in 1860, an
election that the southern slaveholding states took as a personal
affront. The election of Lincoln and a whole slate of republican - and
anti-slavery - candidates to congress meant that the institution of
slavery was threatened as it had never been before. the delicate
balance of northern and southern interests in congress had been upset,
and the southern states could no longer be assured that their agendas
would be protected in congress. Secession began to look more and more
viable.
Many in the south perceived Lincoln's "house divided"
speech as a declaration of war - a war on slavery. a feeling of anger
and disenfranchisement suffused the south the winter following
lincoln's election, a winter that was to become the winter of
secession, which began almost as soon as Lincoln was elected, was
ushered in by the South Carolina secession convention, which convened
in December of 1860. By December 24, South Carolina adopted the
"declaration of the immediate causes which induce and justify the
secession of south Carolina from the federal union," and in effect left
the union.
The declaration adopted by South Carolina outlined the
legality of the decision to secede, while also delineating the reasons
for secession, among them the north's refusal to abide by the fugitive
slave act, which was seen as an affront to slaveowners throughout the
south, the elevation of blacks to citizenship, and, most tellingly, the
election of Lincoln, "because he has declared that 'government cannot
endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind
must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate
extinction."
Before Lincoln ever took office on march 4, 1861,
seven states - South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Texas,
Alabama and Georgia - had seceded from the union, and had formed the
Confederate States of American. After Fort Sumter was fired upon, and
Lincoln called for troops, in effect beginning the Civil War, Virgina,
Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee had also seceded, joining the
Confederacy.
Lincoln's "house divided" speech had touched a nerve
in the South. While Lincoln's meaning may have been misunderstood,
Southerners took his words to mean that as president, Lincoln would not
allow his house - the union - to stand divided, and would abolish
slavery if need be. The chasm, the division between the states that had
been widening for years had now become unbridgeable. and true to
Lincoln's words, the house divided against itself did not stand, did
not endure half-slave and half-free.
