House Divided Speech

Content Warning: The source material and this guide reference the enslavement of Black Americans and the associated racism and prejudice.

“A House Divided” is a speech orated by Abraham Lincoln and crafted using creative figuration, compelling evidence, and persuasive argumentation to meet its objectives. Lincoln’s objectives are to convince the audience, the members of the Republican National Convention, and eventually a broader state and national audience, that pro-slavery politicians have conspired to expand slavery into new territories and perhaps even new states. Lincoln states that there must be a strong political response from Republicans and other anti-slavery elements to counteract this conspiracy. Although it lacks the brevity of the Gettysburg Address or Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, “A House Divided” is nonetheless concise in presenting evidence to support its central claims.

The speech reads much like a traditional Puritan sermon, beginning with a quotation from scripture (epigraph) and elaborating upon it by enumerating arguments (doctrine), evincing these arguments (reasons), demonstrating how the sermon applies to the congregation, and finally making an emotional appeal and call to action (epilogue). This quality of the speech speaks to Lincoln’s resourcefulness as a rhetorician and his awareness of the deeply religious motivations of many of his colleagues. By incorporating religion into his anti-slavery statements, Lincoln carefully links the audience’s religious beliefs to the morality of abolishing slavery, consequently insinuating an immorality with pro-slavery movements and politics.

Rather than begin immediately with the epigraph, Lincoln describes, in an assertive but objective tone, the circumstances in which the United States has found itself. He simplifies the syntax of the scriptural reference, found in several of the gospels; Lincoln would have most likely relied on the King James translation: “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (426). Just as a Puritan minister would, he clarifies the sense in which he invokes the verse: The house is a metaphor for the United States, or the Union, as Lincoln refers to it. He does not argue that the recent legislation will lead to the destruction of the Union, its “dissolution,” but rather that it will contribute to its transformation to become either entirely slave-holding or free. He asks, rhetorically, whether recent events do not demonstrate an alarming movement toward the universal acceptance of slavery (426). In asking the audience this, Lincoln invites listeners to critically assess recent political moves through the lens of this potential conspiracy. By framing recent political events through this lens and inviting rhetorical audience participation, listeners are forced to consider Lincoln’s perspective and to analyze his evidence appropriately. Then, Lincoln crafts the delivery of this carefully-selected evidence to dissuade listeners from opposition.  

Lincoln organizes his initial argument into three points, representing the accomplishments of the Democratic conspiracy to expand slavery into federal territories. In a Puritan sermon, these would constitute the doctrine. Lincoln enumerates them as the first, second, and third “point gained.” To wit:

1. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, or as it was known at the time of its passage, the “Nebraska bill,” revoked the rule established by the Missouri Compromise (1820) and made it possible for slavery to exist in federal territories, subject to popular approval.
2.  As Dred Scott was argued before the Supreme Court, Senator Douglas refused to say “whether the people of a territory [could] constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits” (428). The election of James Buchanan, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, was taken as a public endorsement of the view that they could not.
3.  The Dred Scott decision, issued after the election, effectively made slavery legal in all federal territories. Senator Douglas’s “care not” policy—encouraging the broader public to leave it to people of each jurisdiction to decide the issue—was nothing more than a temporary measure to usher in the Dred Scott doctrine.

These three “points gained” are described figuratively by Lincoln as a “piece of machinery” used by the Democratic conspirators in advancing their goal. As he describes them, his tone grows sardonic. The description of the “legal combination” of the “the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision” as a “piece of machinery” implies that it is unnatural, an artifice used to advance a dishonorable purpose. Likewise, Lincoln attacks The Insincere Appeal to Democracy present in Douglas’s appeal to “the sacred right of self-government” (emphasis in original) as disingenuous and opportunistic (427).

Lincoln further attacks Douglas by cynically describing the disagreement between Douglas and Buchanan concerning the validity of the Lecompton Constitution as a “squabble,” suggesting it is a performance, created by the two Democrats, to distract the public from their true objective. The true intention of “squatter sovereignty” is to shape the public’s mind, concerning the issue of slavery, to one of apathy, paving the way for Dred Scott. Lincoln states:

Under the Dred Scott decision, ‘squatter sovereignty’ squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding—like the mould at the foundry served through one blast and fell back into loose sand—helped to carry an election and then was kicked to the winds (429).

He uses simile and kinesthetic (motion) imagery to underscore the collapse of the Kansas-Nebraska Act under Dred Scott. The Nebraska Act is compared to the temporary scaffolding of a building or the mold that shapes a metal casting. It is removed as surely as these temporary implements have been.

Lincoln next articulates the “working points of that machinery” setup by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Dred Scott (429). In a sermon, these would be considered the “reasons,” the detailed points and evidence supporting the central claim or message. Noting that the machinery has not yet effected its final goal, the expansion of slavery into free states, Lincoln’s delivery of cynicism grows into indignation and alarm. In an ironic turn, “[t]he perfect freedom of the people” to decide the fate of slavery in their respective territories has become “no freedom at all” (430). Lincoln uses a series of rhetorical questions to demonstrate the intentionality with which the Democratic conspiracy was carried out:

Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? […] Why was the court decision held up? […] Why the outgoing President’s felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a reargumentation? Why the incoming President’s advance exhortation in favor of the decision? (430).

This series of questions builds the sense of alarm that Lincoln seeks to elicit, culminating in the metaphor of a “spirited horse,” whose rider is reluctant to mount him for fear of being shaken off. Just like that rider, the Democrats have taken every precaution to prepare the country for the impact of Dred Scott and its implications for the future of the Republic. The continued use of rhetorical question preserves the sense of urgency as the speech reaches its climax. The description of the allegorical house built by Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James returns listeners to the central figure of the speech. The Democrats have erected a house built to preserve and expand the practice of slavery.

A significant revelation does not come until the closing moments of the speech. Lincoln notes that the Kansas-Nebraska Act had suspiciously included language referencing states as well as territories. Again, a series of rhetorical questions are used to emphasize the suspicious nature of this language:

Why mention a State? They were legislating for territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial law? Why are the people of a territory and the people of a state therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same? (431).

The warning implicit in these questions is clear. Douglas and the Democrats are hoping to expand the Constitutional protection of slavery from territories to states. Just as the Constitution, according to Dred Scott, forbids a territory from excluding slavery, so too must it forbid a state from doing likewise.

Lincoln argues that preventing this course of events must be the chief work of the Republican Party, in Illinois and elsewhere. This shift to a discussion of what Republicans must do corresponds to the “application” portion of a Puritan sermon, in which the minister instructs the congregation, with respect to their personal lives and communities, in light of what has been described. While many Republicans have considered supporting Douglas, Lincoln urges that this is a misguided strategy, as a unified party has far more influence than a divided party. Lincoln cites The Need for Moral Leadership, a suggestion that places him in the role of said leadership, and states that a focus on party morality is imperative. Lincoln concludes by arguing that only the Republican Party has the power to effectively oppose slavery:

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by its own undoubted friends—those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work—who do care for the result (434).

Finally, the tone of indignation yields to one of confidence and conviction. In a Puritan sermon, this would be the epilogue, in which the minister makes a final, emotional appeal to the congregation and calls on them to act. Lincoln ends his speech by saying, “We shall not fail—If we stand firm, we shall not fail…the victory is sure to come” (434). The use of repetition reinforces the confidence of Lincoln’s language. While the speech began by recognizing and dissecting an alarming political crisis, it ends with the reassurance that the Republican Party has the resources and fortitude to oppose the treachery of pro-slavery forces, concluding the speech on a triumphant note.