Lincoln had expected to be nominated, and during several weeks he had been thinking over his speech of acceptance.  However otherwise he might seem at any time to be engaged, he was ceaselessly turning over this matter in his mind; and frequently he stopped short to jot down an idea or expression upon some scrap of paper, which then he thrust into his hat.  Thus, piece by piece, the accumulation grew alike inside and outside of his head, and at last he took all his fragments and with infinite consideration moulded them into unity.  So studiously had he wrought that by the time of delivery he had unconsciously committed the whole speech accurately to memory.  If so much painstaking seemed to indicate an exaggerated notion of the importance of his words, he was soon vindicated by events; for what he said was subjected to a dissection and a criticism such as have not often pursued the winged words of the orator.  When at last the composition was completed, he gathered a small coterie of his friends and admirers, and read it to them.  The opening paragraph was as follows:—­

“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 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.”

As the reader watched for the effect of this exordium he only saw disapproval and consternation.  His assembled advisers and critics, each and all save only the fiery Herndon, protested that language so daring and advanced would work a ruin that might not be mended in years.  Lincoln heard their condemnation with gravity rather than surprise.  But he had worked his way to a conviction, and he was immovable; all he said was, that the statement was true, right, and just, that it was time it should be made, and that he would make it, even though he might have “to go down with it;” that he would “rather be defeated with this expression in the speech ... than to be victorious without it.”  Accordingly, on the next day he spoke the paragraph without the change of a word.