Did Lincoln Foresee the War in 1858?

On the 16th June 1858 Illinois Republicans held their state convention at Springfield and picked attorney Abraham Lincoln to challenge Stephen A Douglas for his seat in the U.S. Senate. As soon as the tall and ungainly candidate addressed the crowd he had the audience in the palm of his hand.

Most of the address has been forgotten, but some of his opening remarks were powerful and were remembered, pondered and quoted. Lincoln began saying that the country was like a group of children lost in the forest, not knowing which way to get out. Quickly he mentioned the importance of the slavery issue, which was growing instead of diminishing and indicated that he did not think the matter would be resolved short of a major national crisis.

Lincoln then pronounced four of the most widely quoted sentences ever spoken by the master orator:

• A house divided against itself cannot stand.
• I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave 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 one thing, or all the other.

Once war erupted, these sentences were reprinted many times and his words were taken to mean that division would be brought to an end on the battlefield. Before Lincoln addressed those convention delegates in June 1858, he expressed his conviction that the Founding Fathers had not abolished slavery under the Constitution because they believed it would die a natural death. Specifically, his appreciation of Thomas Jefferson was almost reverential, and he believed that Jefferson was among those who expected time to bring and end to slavery. To himself, Lincoln eagerly anticipated the day when the issue of slavery no longer divided the country, and he was certain that such a day was not far off.

Two years later he faced the bitter reality of a divided Union and took it upon himself to put the broken pieces back together by whatever means it might take. At Springfield in 1858 he had just been selected to joust with Douglas for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In 1861 he was the chief executive who confronted the dilemma of what to do about Fort Sumter and whatever might happen afterward. This was not what he had in mind when he spoke as a senatorial candidate; he expected natural processes to bring healing and unity to the "divided house". Instead time had driven the country apart and armies were forming. If anything, Lincoln's crystal ball was cloudy at best.

The above article first appeared in the ACWS Newsletter, Spring 2007