in order to confound his kingdom with the Kingdom of Heaven.  Of course he does not cast all the devils out—­if he did he would lose his kingdom—­only enough to make himself appear as one of the divine wonder-workers.  A house divided against itself can stand, even as the world can stand with both good and evil in it, with both God and Satan in divided authority over it; and even as man has good and evil in his own nature and still lives and works without becoming wholly good or wholly evil.  So could this country stand divided into free and slave states as it was formed at the beginning.  There was not the slightest chance that it would ever become all slave, as Lincoln had presented one of the alternatives of a divided house.  There was great chance that it would become all free by natural processes, as Douglas had indicated over and over again before the time of these debates.

Here I found that the debaters had split hairs on what the fathers had done.  “Why can’t these agitators leave the states as they were made by the fathers, slave and free?” asked Douglas.  “They were not made,” retorted Lincoln, “they were found; slavery was found and was let be as it was.”  “No,” said Douglas, “the fathers organized a republic, adopted a Constitution; and when they made it, instead of abolishing slavery, making it free, they kept slavery and made it slave by the votes of states passing upon and acceding to an instrument of government.  And besides, this instrument of government provided for the importation of more slaves from Africa; and provided for the capture and return of fugitive slaves now in the country or thereafter to be imported into the country.”

Douglas had attacked the doctrine of a divided house with all possible power and brilliancy.  He had insisted that there was no more reason for the house of America to be divided because there was negro slavery in some states and no slavery in others, than because there was prohibition in Maine and whisky in Kentucky.  And that there would be disunion if some states warred on other states about the purely domestic affairs of the latter.  This was the only sense in which the house could be divided, and caused to fall.  That disparate interests in the states should not make hostility between them; and that hostility arising from attacks and agitation should be put down.  He went on to denounce the Republican party for holding and preaching a faith that arrayed one section of the country against another; and with great satire and invective he showed that the Republicans stood upon sectional principles which could not be preached in the South and not everywhere in the North.  “But now you have a sectional organization,” he had said to a theocratic audience at Galesburg, “a party which appeals to the northern section of the Union against the southern, a party which appeals to northern passion, northern pride, northern ambition, and northern prejudices, against southern people, the southern states, and southern institutions.  The leaders of that party hope to be able to unite the northern states in one great sectional party; and inasmuch as the North is the strongest section they will thus be enabled to outvote, conquer, and control the South.  Is there a Republican in Galesburg who can travel into Kentucky and carry his principles with him across the Ohio?”