free. Could we have had our way, the chances of these black girls ever
mixing their blood with that of white people would have been diminished
at least to the extent that it could not have been without their
consent. But Judge Douglas is delighted to have them decided to be
slaves, and not human enough to have a hearing, even if they were free,
and thus left subject to the forced concubinage of their masters, and
liable to become the mothers of mulattoes in spite of themselves,--the
very state of the case that produces nine-tenths of all the mulattoes,
all the mixing of the blood of the nation.




_"A house divided against itself cannot stand." On Lincoln's Nomination
to the United States Senate. Springfield, Illinois. June 17, 1858_


If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far 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 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 the course