Reading practice 64
SOCIAL SCIENCE: Abraham Lincoln and the American Republic
Throughout the Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas presidential debates, Stephen Douglas repeat- edly criticized Lincoln's "House Divided" speech. In his "House Divided" speech, Lincoln argues that the "Spirit of Nebraska," the alleged right to choose slav- ery over freedom in territories, had invaded the country and divided it. The North and the South were no longer working together to put slavery on the road to extinc- tion. In fact, by the late 1850s, the South had fully embraced slavery and wanted to expand it. This new attitude toward slavery promoted by Southerners and some Northern Democrats led Lincoln to believe that they wanted to nationalize slavery1.
In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln stated that the nation was too divided to continue to com- promise on slavery. Lincoln began his defense by referring to the actions of the Founding Fathers, who had worked to eradicate slavery. He mentioned the unan- imous abolition of the African slave trade, as well as the Northwest Ordinance and the lack of the word slave in the Constitution, to show that the Founding Fathers intended slavery to be strangled in the original Southern States.
Lincoln argued that the South had moved away from this course of ending slavery2. Lincoln also stated that the federal government, through the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, had always regulated slavery in the territories. The Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 were at odds with the new Dred Scott decision, which denied that Congress had a right to exclude slavery in the states3. The Dred Scott decision also reinforced the idea that African Americans were not citizens and that slaves could be brought into the North without gain- ing their freedom. The Dred Scott decision had the effect of undermining Lincoln's Republican platform that wanted to repeal the Kansas/Nebraska Act.
Both in the debates and the "House Divided" speech, Lincoln repeatedly questioned the Democrats' involvement in the Dred Scott decision4. Lincoln suggested that a conspiracy may have taken place between President Buchanan, President Pierce, Judge Taney, and other Democrats, like Stephen Douglas. Lincoln used evidence to show that the Democrats seemed to have known that the Dred Scott decision was coming. A key piece of evidence is that the Dred Scott decision was pushed back until after the elec- tion of 1856. In addition, the Democrats had drafted legislation in 1850 and 1854 that contained language which seemed to predict that Congress would not be able to exclude slavery in the territories because of Constitutional constraints. The Dred Scott decision cast doubts on the platform of the Democrats. The Democrats had been endorsing a platform of popular sovereignty, which stated that all new states and territories should be able to vote on whether slav- ery should be allowed within their borders5. The Dred Scott decision reaffirmed for the South that slaves were considered property. Because America's Consti- tution protects property, exclusion of slavery through unfriendly legislation was unconstitutional.
Lincoln spoke about the Kansas/Nebraska Act and his opinion on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise throughout the debates. He believed that popular sovereignty was contrary to the principle that valued freedom over slavery: The "Spirit of Nebraska" was what prompted Northerners like Douglas to create the Kansas/Nebraska Act that went against the "Spirit of '76," which was the hope of the Founding Fathers that slavery6 would be strangled within the original southern states over time. Without the majority of pub- lic opinion actively opposed to slavery, Lincoln realized that the battle over slavery could not be won.
Tensions had increased dramatically in both the North and the South in the late 1850s. Violence in Kansas had turned neighbor against neighbor, and there were even physical fights breaking out in the Senate7. The South had begun to threaten secession with regularity, and many Northerners afraid of disunion were willing to sacrifice freedom to keep the country together.
Lincoln's "House Divided" speech and his argu- ments in the Lincoln-Douglas debates show that he believed that slavery was becoming a national institution8. This threat to the nation came from the South's desire to expand slavery9, and Lincoln believed the people were naive to the Democratic conspiracy.
By the late 1850s, Lincoln realized that a serious conflict was imminent. The North and South were drift- ing further and further apart and their ideologies were becoming more different every year.10
