The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln,
Volume Three, by Abraham Lincoln

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Title: The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Three
Constitutional Edition

Author: Abraham Lincoln

Commentator: Theodore Roosevelt, Carl Schurz, and Joseph Choate

Editor: Arthur Brooks Lapsley

Release Date: June, 2001 [Etext #2655]
Posting Date: July 5, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINCOLN'S PAPERS ***

Produced by David Widger

THE PAPERS AND WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

VOLUME THREE

CONSTITUTIONAL EDITION

By Abraham Lincoln

Edited by Arthur Brooks Lapsley

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES I

POLITICAL SPEECHES & DEBATES of LINCOLN WITH DOUGLAS In the Senatorial
Campaign of 1858 in Illinois SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 17, 1858

[The following speech was delivered at Springfield, Ill., at the close of
the Republican State Convention held at that time and place, and by which
Convention Mr. LINCOLN had been named as their candidate for United States
Senator. Mr. DOUGLAS was not present.]

Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:--If we could first know
where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to
do, and how to do it. We are now far 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 has 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 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 alike lawful in all th