Existing comment:
A house divided against cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.
I don 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.
Speech at the Republican State Convention, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858
With this speech, Lincoln accepted the Republican Party nomination for United States Senator. It was his strongest pronouncement to date on the issue of Union and the future of the country. |