On June 16, 1858, the campaign for the 1860 election that would make Abraham Lincoln the 16th President of the United States was 2 years down the road, but it was his acceptance speech of the Republican Party’s nomination for United States Senator in Springfiled, Illinois that first put Lincoln on the national political map. It was an election he would lose to his famous debating partner Steven A. Douglas, but a speech that would define Abraham Lincoln and set him apart from his opponent on
NATIONAL LINCOLN’S HOUSE DIVIDED SPEECH DAY!
The nation was sorely torn on the institution of slavery, and Lincoln had been a vocal opponent of slavery for years. With this speech he foretold of the Civil War that would resolve the issue and abolish slavery forever in the United States of America.
“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 further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”
•Suggested Activities: Eternal vigilance.