as saying: “I shall have my hands full. He is the strong man of his party-full of wit, facts, dates, and the best stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is shrewd; and if I beat him my victory will be hardly won.' "'*

Lincoln's speech of our text-the one of June 16th-was the key-note of the campaign, and it was intended as such. Hay and Nicolay say of it: "It was perhaps the most carefully prepared speech of his whole life. Every word of it was written, every sentence had been tested; but the speaker delivered it without manuscript or notes. It was not an ordinary oration, but, in the main, an argument as sententious and axiomatic as if made to a bench of jurists. Its opening sentences contained a political prophecy which not only became the groundwork of the campaign, but heralded one of the world's great historical events." t

3. It was chiefly this passage in Lincoln's speech which gave to it note and significance. The passage gave a name to the speech-the "house-divided-against-itself" speech. The same doctrine is here announced which Seward proclaimed in his "Irrepressible Conflict Speech," four months later. Seward's utterance attracted much more public attention than Lincoln's. Seward was the recognized leader of his party, and was looked upon as a political thinker and philosopher. Lincoln was comparatively unknown, and in the public estimation the weight did not attach to his words which they came to have subsequently. Of Lincoln's boldness and leadership in this utterance Rhodes says:

"No Republican of prominence and ability had advanced so radical a doctrine. Lincoln knew that to commit the party

*Anecdotes of Public Men, vol. ii., p. 179, cited by Rhodes. Hay and Nicholay, Century Magazine, July, 1887.

of his State to that belief was an important step, and ought not to be taken without consultation and careful reflection. He first submitted the speech to his friend and partner, Herndon. Stopping at the end of each paragraph for comments, when he had read, 'A house divided against itself cannot stand,' Herndon said: "That is true, but is it wise or politic to say so?' Lincoln replied: That expression is a truth of all human experience, “A house divided against itself cannot stand." . . I want to use some universally known figure expressed in simple language as universally well known, that may strike home to the minds of men in order to raise them up to the peril of the times; I do not believe it would be right in changing or omitting it. I would rather be defeated with this expression in the speech, and uphold and discuss it before the people, than be victorious without it.'

"When we consider Lincoln's restless ambition, his yearning for the senatorship, and his knowledge that he was starting on an untrodden path, there is nobility in this response. Two years before he had incorporated a similar avowal in a speech, and had struck it out in obedience to the remonstrance of a political friend. Now, however, actuated by devotion to principle, and perhaps feeling that the startling doctrine of 1858 would ere long become the accepted view of the Republican party, he was determined to speak in accordance with his own jugdment. Yet as he wanted to hear all that could be said against it, he read the speech to a dozen of his Springfield friends, and invited criticism. None of them approved it. Several severely condemned it. One said it was 'a foolish utterance,' another that the doctrine was ahead of its time,' while a third argued that it would drive away a good many voters fresh from the Democratic ranks.' Herndon, who was an abolitionist, alone approved it, and exclaimed: 'Lincoln, deliver that speech as read, and it will make you President.' After listening patiently to the criticisms of his friends,

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who ardently desired his political advancement, he told them that he had carefully studied the subject and thought on it deeply. 'Friends,' said he, this thing has been retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth-let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.''

This notable utterance, however, was not calculated to attract votes to Mr. Lincoln in his immediate contest. The anti-slavery sentiment was not so strong in Illinois as in some other parts of the Union, and this passage was made the occasion of vigorous attacks by his opponents. It is interesting to notice how Douglas, with his usual adroitness, attempted to turn the passage to Lincoln's disadvantage. At Chicago, on July 9, 1858, Douglas replied to this speech of Lincoln. After complimenting Lincoln personally "as a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent," Douglas said:

"In other words, Mr. Lincoln asserts, as a fundamental principle of this government, that there must be uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions of each and all the States of the Union; and he therefore invites all the nonslaveholding States to band together, organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery in Virginia, upon the Carolinas, upon slavery in all of the slaveholding States in this Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be exterminated. He then notifies the slaveholding States to stand together as a unit and make an aggressive war upon the free States of this Union with a view of establishing slavery in them all; of forcing it upon Illinois, of forcing it upon New York, upon New England, and upon every other free State, and that they shall keep up the war

*History of the United States, vol. ii., pp. 315, 316.

fare until it has been formally established in them all. In other words, Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the free States against the slave States-a war of extermination-to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave." *

Douglas then proceeded to argue that the framers of the government never deemed it possible nor desirable that there should be uniformity in local institutions and domestic regulations of the different States of the Union.

Lincoln replied to Douglas at Chicago, July 10, 1858, protesting against the interpretation which Douglas had put on the Springfield speech. At Bloomington, on July 16, 1858, Douglas restates the same interpretation. Lincoln answers again in the joint debates. The student is referred to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

4. See the speech of Chase, p. 3, and reply of Douglas, p. 50.

5. This notable expression of Douglas was used in his famous speech on the Lecompton scheme, December 9, 1857.-See Congressional Globe.

6. Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, James Buchanan.

The charge of collusion between the Executive and the Judiciary,-between Buchanan and Taney,—had been previously made by Seward, in a celebrated speech in the Senate, March 3, 1858, on the Lecompton Constitution.-See the Congressional Globe of that date, and Seward's Works, vol. iv. The charge of collusion is not sustained by any evidence. On this point Rhodes says:

* Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 9.

"The only evidence for the charge of Seward lay in the statement of the President in his inaugural, that the question as to the time when people of a territory might exclude slavery therefrom was pending before the Supreme Court, and would be speedily settled. Undoubtedly Buchanan then knew what would be substantially the decision of the court on the territorial question, but so did a thousand other men." "Other Supreme Court decisions have leaked out. Judges have confidential friends; and the truth is sometimes told by the pronouncing of some doubtful phrase or by an ambiguous giving-out. But, however Buchanan got his intelligence, his character and that of Taney are proof that the chief-justice did not communicate the import of the decision to the Presidentelect. That either would stoop from the etiquette of his high office is an idea that may not be entertained for a moment; and we may be sure that with Taney's lofty notions of what belonged to an independent judiciary, he would have no intercourse with the Executive that could not brook the light of day."

Taney was so incensed at the speech of Seward that he told Tyler, who was afterwards his biographer, that had Seward been nominated and elected President in 1860 instead of Lincoln, he would have refused to administer to him the oath of office."

"The contrast between Seward and Lincoln may be seen in their different treatment of this matter. The tact of Lincoln is shown in making the charge by intimation and by trenchant questions; then, with humor and exquisite skill, giving a homely illustration which struck the popular mind so forcibly that the notion conveyed by it undoubtedly became the belief of the Republican masses as long as the Dred Scott decision remained a question of politics."

"As politics go, the argument of Lincoln was perhaps allowable."