e all slave, as Lincoln
had presented one of the alternatives of a divided house. There was
great chance that it would become all free by natural processes, as
Douglas had indicated over and over again before the time of these
debates.

Here I found that the debaters had split hairs on what the fathers had
done. "Why can't these agitators leave the states as they were made by
the fathers, slave and free?" asked Douglas. "They were not made,"
retorted Lincoln, "they were found; slavery was found and was let be as
it was." "No," said Douglas, "the fathers organized a republic, adopted
a Constitution; and when they made it, instead of abolishing slavery,
making it free, they kept slavery and made it slave by the votes of
states passing upon and acceding to an instrument of government. And
besides, this instrument of government provided for the importation of
more slaves from Africa; and provided for the capture and return of
fugitive slaves now in the country or thereafter to be imported into the
country."

Douglas had attacked the doctrine of a divided house with all possible
power and brilliancy. He had insisted that there was no more reason for
the house of America to be divided because there was negro slavery in
some states and no slavery in others, than because there was prohibition
in Maine and whisky in Kentucky. And that there would be disunion if
some states warred on other states about the purely domestic affairs of
the latter. This was the only sense in which the house could be divided,
and caused to fall. That disparate interests in the states should not
make hostility between them; and that hostility arising from attacks and
agitation should be put down. He went on to denounce the Republican
party for holding and preaching a faith that arrayed one section of the
country against another; and with great satire and invective he showed
that the Republicans stood upon sectional principles which could not be
preached in the South and not everywhere in the North. "But now you have
a sectional organization," he had said to a theocratic audience at
Galesburg, "a party which appeals to the northern section of the Union
against the southern, a party which appeals to northern passion,
northern pride, northern ambition, and northern prejudices, against
southern people, the southern states, and southern institutions. The
leaders of that party hope to be able to unite the northern states in
one great sectional party; and i