States,
springing from differences in the soil, differences in the face of the
country, and in the climate, are bonds of Union. They do not make "a house
divided against itself," but they make a house united. If they produce
in one section of the country what is called for, by the wants of another
section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, they
are not matters of discord, but bonds of union, true bonds of union. But
can this question of slavery be considered as among these varieties in
the institutions of the country? I leave it to you to say whether, in
the history of our government, this institution of slavery has not always
failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of
discord and an element of division in the house. I ask you to consider
whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall continue
to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the
grave, and another race shall arise, with the same moral and intellectual
development we have, whether, if that institution is standing in the same
irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an element
of division? If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to this
question, the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge
reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery
has existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist in
some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the
position in which our fathers originally placed it--restricting it from
the new Territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off
its source by the abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal
of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief
that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think--and
in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives--lately, I think that he,
and those acting with him, have placed that institution on a new basis,
which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it
is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe
we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery
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,
on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward unti