" This
opinion prevailed in Illinois; but the influences within the Republican
party over which it prevailed yielded only a reluctant acquiescence, if
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.
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