he had not always been insensible to the force of this reasoning. At the Bloomington Convention he had uttered the same ideas in almost the same words; and their novelty, their tendency, their recognition of a state of incipient civil war in a country for the most part profoundly peaceful, these, and the bloody work which might come of their acceptance by a great party, had filled the minds of some of his hearers with the most painful apprehensions. The theory was equally shocking to them, whether as partisans or as patriots. Among them was Hon. T. Lyle Dickey, who sought Mr. Lincoln, and begged him to suppress them in future. He vindicated his speech as he has just vindicated it in the interview with Mr. Herndon; but, after much persuasion, he promised at length not to repeat it.

It was now Mr. Herndon's turn to be surprised: the pupil had outstripped the teacher. He was intensely anxious for Mr. Lincoln's election: he feared the effect of this speech; and yet it was so exactly in accordance with his own faith, that he could not advise him to suppress it. It might be heresy to many others, but it was orthodoxy to him; and he was in the habit of telling the whole truth, without regard to consequences. If it cost a single defeat now, he was sure that its potency would one day be felt, and the wisdom of its present utterance acknowledged. He therefore urged Mr. Lincoln to speak it as he had written it, and to treat with the scorn of a prophet those who, having ears, would not hear, and, having eyes, would not see. The advice was not unacceptable, but Mr. Lincoln thought he owed it to other friends to counsel with them also.

About a dozen gentlemen were called to meet in the Library Room in the State House. "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,' &c. 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, and especially that section quoted above. They unanimously declared that the whole speech was too far in advance of the times; and they all condemned that section or part of his speech already quoted, as unwise and impolitic, if not false. William H. 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 - you and I, if no one else — lift the people to the level of this speech now, higher hereafter. 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 short moment, 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 question well from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it should be uttered; and if it must be that I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth, die in the advocacy cannot live on injus

of what is right and just. This nation tice, — “a house divided against itself cannot stand," I say again and again.' This was spoken with some degree of emotion, the effects of his love of truth, and sorrow from the disagreement of his friends with himself."

On the evening of the 17th this celebrated speech-known since as "The House-divided-against-itself Speech was delivered to an immense audience in the hall of the House of Representatives. Mr. Lincoln never penned words which had a more prodigious influence upon the public mind, or which more directly and powerfully affected his own career. It was as follows:

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 on 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 had 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 farther 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.

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 to speak, compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred-Scott Decision. Let him consider, not only what work the machinery 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 evidences of design and concert of action among its chief master-workers from the beginning.

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. 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.

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 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 be more specific, — 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 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 the 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, requests the leading advocate of the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion whether a 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 re-argument. 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.

This was the third point gained.

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this Capitol 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 squabble, 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 much, and is ready to suffer to the end.

And well may he cling to that principle! If he has any parental feel

ing, 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 mould at the foundery, 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. The working-points of that machinery are,

First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such, 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 this provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

Secondly, 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.

Thirdly, 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 it 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 if 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 mould 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.