“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.”
Abraham Lincoln
House Divided Speech (Primary source)
Abraham Lincoln delivered his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois, on June 16, 1858, immediately after being nominated as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate to challenge Democrat Stephen A. Douglas.
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“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.”
Abraham Lincoln
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— Abraham Lincoln Primary source“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.”
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