I must go
down because of it, 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 emotion--the effects of his love of
truth, and sorrow from the disagreement of his friends."

On the next evening the speech was delivered to an immense audience in
the hall of the House of Representatives at Springfield. "The hall and
lobbies and galleries were even more densely crowded and packed than at
any time during the day," says the official report; and as Lincoln
"approached the speaker's stand, he was greeted with shouts and hurrahs,
and prolonged cheers." The prophetic sentences which dropped first from
the lips of the speaker were freighted with a solemn import which even
he could scarcely have divined in full. The seers of old were not more
inspired than he who now, out of the irresistible conviction of his
heart, said to his surprised and unbelieving listeners:

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 in 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 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.

Mr. Jeriah Bonham, an old citizen of Illinois, relates that he was
present as a delegate at the Springfield convention and heard the famous
speech of Lincoln. According to Mr. Bonham, "The speech was prepared
with unusual care, every paragraph and sentence carefully weighed. T