On the 16th, the convention, numbering, with delegates and alternates, about a thousand men, met, and passed unanimously the following resolution:—
"That Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas's term of office."
That evening Mr. Lincoln came early to his office, along with Mr. Herndon. Having carefully locked the door, and put the key in his own pocket, he pulled from his bosom the manuscript of his speech, and proceeded to read it slowly and distinctly. When he had finished the first paragraph, he came to a dead pause, and turned to his astounded auditor with the inquiry, "How do you like that? What do you think of it?"—"I think," returned Mr. Herndon, "it is true; but is it entirely politic to read or speak it as it is written?"
—"That makes no difference," Mr. Lincoln said. "That expression is a truth of all human experience,—'a house divided against itself cannot stand;' and 'he that runs may read.' The proposition is indisputably true, and has been true for more than six thousand years; and—I will deliver it as written. I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language as universally known, that may strike home to the minds of men, in order to rouse them to the peril of the times. I would rather be defeated with this expression in the speech, and it held up and discussed before the people, than to be victorious without it."
It may be questioned whether Mr. Lincoln had a clear right to indulge in such a venture, as a representative party man in a close contest. He had other interests than his own in charge: he was bound to respect the opinions, and, if possible, secure the success, of the party which had made him its leader. He knew that the strange doctrine, so strikingly enunciated, would alienate many well-affected voters. Was it his duty to cast these away, or to keep them? He was not asked to sacrifice any principle of the party, or any opinion of his own previously expressed, but merely to forego the trial of an experiment, to withhold the announcement of a startling theory, and to leave the creed of the party as it came from the hands of its makers, without this individual supplement, of which they had never dreamed. It is evident that he had not always been insensible to the force of this reasoning. At the Bloomington Convention he had uttered the same ideas in almost the same words; and their novelty, their tendency, their recognition of a state of incipient civil war in a country for the most part profoundly peaceful,—these, and the bloody work which might come of their acceptance by a great party, had filled the minds of some of his hearers with the most painful apprehensions. The theory was equally shocking to them, whether as partisans or as patriots. Among them was Hon. T. Lyle Dickey, who sought Mr. Lincoln, and begged him to suppress them in future. He vindicated his speech as he has just vindicated it in the interview with Mr. Herndon; but, after much persuasion, he promised at length not to repeat it.
It was now Mr. Herndon's turn to be surprised: the pupil had outstripped the teacher. He was intensely anxious for Mr. Lincoln's election: he feared the effect of this speech; and yet it was so exactly in accordance with his own faith, that he could not advise him to suppress it. It might be heresy to many others, but it was orthodoxy to him; and he was in the habit of telling the whole truth, without regard to consequences. If it cost a single defeat now, he was sure that its potency would one day be felt, and the wisdom of its present utterance acknowledged. He therefore urged Mr. Lincoln to speak it as he had written it, and to treat with the scorn of a prophet those who, having ears, would not hear, and, having eyes, would not see. The advice was not unacceptable, but Mr. Lincoln thought he owed it to other friends to counsel with them also.
About a dozen gentlemen were called to meet in the Library Room in the State House. "After seating them at the round table," says John Armstrong, one of the number, "he read that clause or section of his speech which reads, 'a house divided against itself cannot stand,' &c. He read it slowly and cautiously, so as to let each man fully understand it. After he had finished the reading, he asked the opinions of his friends as to the wisdom or policy of it. Every man among them condemned the speech in substance and spirit, and especially that section quoted above. They unanimously declared that the whole speech was too far in advance of the times; and they all condemned that section or part of his speech already quoted, as unwise and impolitic, if not false. William H. Herndon sat still while they were giving their respective opinions of its unwisdom and impolicy: then he sprang to his feet and said, 'Lincoln, deliver it just as it reads. If it is in advance of the times, let us—you and I, if no one else—lift the people to the level of this speech now, higher hereafter. The speech is true, wise, and politic, and will succeed now or in the future. Nay, it will aid you, if it will not make you President of the United States.'
"Mr. Lincoln sat still a short moment, rose from his chair, walked backwards and forwards in the hall, stopped and said, 'Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it should be uttered; and if it must be that I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth,—die in the advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice,—"a house divided against itself cannot stand," I say again and again.' This was spoken with some degree of emotion,—the effects of his love of truth, and sorrow from the disagreement of his friends with himself."
On the evening of the 17th this celebrated speech—known since as "The House-divided-against-itself Speech"—was delivered to an immense audience in the hall of the House of Representatives. Mr. Lincoln never penned words which had a more prodigious influence upon the public mind, or which more directly and powerfully affected his own career. It was as follows:—
Gentlemen of the Convention,—If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far on 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 had 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 farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States,—old as well as new, North as well as South.