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Okla-homey
6/16/2007, 07:24 AM
June 16, 1858: Lincoln warns that America is becoming a “house divided”

149 years ago, on this day in 1858, newly nominated Illinois GOP senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln addresses the Illinois Republican Convention in Springfield and warns that the nation faces a crisis that could destroy the Union.

http://aycu22.webshots.com/image/18301/2001989778183279672_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001989778183279672)
Lincoln in 1858. He didn't grow the beard until he ran for the White House two years later.

Speaking to more than 1,000 delegates in an ominous tone, Lincoln paraphrased a passage from the New Testament: “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

The issue dividing the nation was slavery’s place in the growing western territories and the extent of federal power over individual states’ rights. Lincoln declared that only the federal government had the power to end slavery.

While the southern states almost totally relied on an economy and lifestyle dependent upon the cheap labor provided by human slavery, the North opposed slavery on moral grounds. The northern states also considered industrialization and manufacturing the key to America’s economic future, not farming.

The entrance of new states into the Union, such as Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, brought to a head unresolved conflicts over which government entity--state or federal--should make the final decision regarding slavery.

http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/16920/2001946630320677375_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001946630320677375)
Lincoln's Democrat opponent in the Illinois Senate race was Stephen Douglas. Douglas was only five feet tall.

For his part, Lincoln firmly believed that slavery was immoral and was wholly incompatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence embodied in the phrase “all men are created equal.” However, to be sure, Lincoln prioritized preserving the Union above all else.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates were not anything like the political debates in today's sound-bite culture. The 1858 format opened with one speaker making his case for one hour, followed by his opponent getting an hour and a half to make a rebuttal; then the first speaker delivered a half-hour counter-rebuttal. Large audiences gathered to hear these three-hour marathons.

http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/19629/2001980050491492041_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001980050491492041)

After Lincoln’s speech, several of his friends expressed dismay at its “radical” content. Leonard Swett, a lawyer and friend of Lincoln’s, later wrote that Lincoln’s talk of using federal power to end slavery was “unfortunate and inappropriate,” although Swett admitted that in retrospect Lincoln was ultimately correct.

At the time, the people of Illinois ultimately agreed with Swett: Lincoln lost the close Senate race of 1858 to the more moderate Stephen Douglas, who advocated states’ sovereign rights to maintain chattel slavery as a protected institution.

Lincoln’s eloquent speech, though, earned him national attention and his strong showing in the polls encouraged his party, the inant GOP, to back his ultimately successful bid for the presidency in 1860. Lincoln won that race because the Democrats were divided. The pro-slave wing of the Democratic Party voted Douglas. The anti-slave wing voted Breckenridge, leaving a solid block of GOP and other voters to sweep one of our greatest presidents into office.

His wisdom, character and strength of will allowed him to succesfully steer the ship of state through the rocks and stormy seas of the horrible four-year Civil War.

SoonerStormchaser
6/16/2007, 01:13 PM
Is it me, or do all the photos of Douglas look like he belonged in Munchkinland?

TUSooner
6/16/2007, 04:30 PM
liberals! <shakes head>

SicEmBaylor
6/16/2007, 04:36 PM
Onion-of-Sadness.