Episode 28: Lincoln’s “House Divided” | The Speech That Warned America
In June 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most consequential speeches of his political career: his famous “House Divided” speech.
Standing before the Illinois Republican State Convention in Springfield, Lincoln warned that the United States could not remain permanently divided between free and slave states. He connected the growing crisis over slavery to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott decision, and the political struggle with Stephen A. Douglas.
Lincoln’s argument was controversial—even among his own political allies. He would lose his Senate race against Douglas, but the…
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