A House Divided Speech Analysis Essay Example for Free

A House Divided Speech Analysis EssayIf we could first k at present where we atomic number 18, and whither we are tending, we could better forecast what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifty year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting and 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 crises sh entirely have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot erect. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the jointure 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 sound judgment 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 the States, old as well as new, North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter antecedent? Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination piece of machinery, so to speak compounded of the nor-east doctrine and the Dred Scott decision.Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief architects, from the beginning. The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State constitutions, and from most of the national territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to sl avery, and was the first point gained.But, so far, Congress only had acted and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained and give chance for more. This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of squatter sovereignty, otherwise called holy right of selfgovernment, which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to follow to just this That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object Then opened the roar of unblock declamation in favor of squatter sovereignty and sacred right of self-government. But, said opposition members, let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery. Not we, said the friends of the measure and belt down they voted the amendment.While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law case involving the question of a negros freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then into a territory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States overlap Court for the District of Missouri and both Nebraska Bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negros name was Dred Scott, which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next Presidential election, the law case came to and was argued in the Supreme Court of the United States The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such(prenominal) as it was, secured. That was the second point gained The Supreme Court met again did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument.The Presidential inauguration came, and soothe no decision of the Court but the incoming President in his inaugu ral address fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatsoalways it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the bred Scott Decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any incompatible view had ever been entertained At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up.I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or vot ed up to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind the dogma for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott Decision squatter sovereignty squatted out of existence, tumbled down like fugitive scaffolding, like the mold 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 We cannot absolutely know that all these assume adaptations are the result of preconcert.But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen, Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance, -and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding or, if a angiotensin converting enzyme piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common architectural plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struckOur 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. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of ohmic resistance to a common danger, with ev ery external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot unload of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now? now when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.