A House Divided Speech Analysis Essay Example for Free

A House carve up Speech Analysis EssayIf we could first know where we ar, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifty year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident cry of putting and end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not merely not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crises sh every have been reached and passed. A nominate shared come to the fore over 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 f exclusively but I do expect it will cease to be divided.It will pass all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further blossom forth of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate quenching 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. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? let every one who doubts carefully contemplate that now near complete legal combination piece of machinery, so to speak compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott finale.Let him consider not only what work the machinery is competent to do, and how well adapted but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of carry through among its chief architects, from the beginning. The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State constitutions, and from nearly of the national territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This opened all the national ter ritory to slavery, and was the first point gained.But, so far, Congress only had acted and an indorsement by the sight, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained and give get hold for more. This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable business of squatter sovereignty, otherwise called sacred right of selfgovernment, which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful priming of whatsoever government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this That if either one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object and then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of squatter sovereignty and sacred right of self-government. But, verbalise resistance members, let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery. Not we, said the friends of the measure and down they voted the amendment.W hile the Nebraska posting was passing through Congress, a law lineament involving the question of a negros freedom, by reason of his proprietor having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then into a territory cover by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri and both Nebraska score and grounds were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negros name was Dred Scott, which name now designates the decision level(p)tually made in the case. Before the then next Presidential election, the law case came to and was argued in the coercive Court of the United States The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained The Supreme Court met again did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument.The Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the Court but the incoming President in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the people to nominate by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the bred Scott Decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained At length a squabble springs up mingled with the President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up.I do not netherstand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would bear upon upon the public mind the ruler for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott Decision squatter sovereignty squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding, like the mold at the foundry, served through one blast and unrelenting back into loose sand, helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the conclusion of preconcert.But when we see a lot of editd timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen, Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for ins tance, -and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first policy change was struckOur cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends -those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even contrary elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we venturesome all then to falter now? now when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, in the beginning or later, the victory is sure to come.