they acquiesced at all, after having materially strengthened Douglas's
position. Such was the situation of things when the campaign of 1858
between Lincoln and Douglas began.

Lincoln opened the campaign on his side at the convention which nominated
him as the Republican candidate for the senatorship, with a memorable
saying which sounded like a shout from the watchtower of history: "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 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 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." Then he proceeded to point out that the
Nebraska doctrine combined with the Dred Scott decision worked in the
direction of making the nation "all slave." Here was the "irrepressible
conflict" spoken of by Seward a short time later, in a speech made famous
mainly by that phrase. If there was any new discovery in it, the right
of priority was Lincoln's. This utterance proved not only his
statesmanlike conception of the issue, but also, in his situation as a
candidate, the firmness of his moral courage. The friends to whom he had
read the draught of this speech before he delivered it warned him
anxiously that its delivery might be fatal to his success in the
election. This was shrewd advice, in the ordinary sense. While a
slaveholder could threaten disunion with impunity, the mere suggestion
that the existence of slavery was incompatible with freedom in the Union
would hazard the political chances of any public man in the North. But
Lincoln was inflexible. "It is true," said he, "and I will deliver it as