Question/Problem 3: How did ideas and events contribute to the conflict between North and South?

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln became the Republican candidate for a United States Senate seat from Illinois. Read the following excerpt from his acceptance speech and answer the questions below.

In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself can not stand." I believe this Government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolve d--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 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.

From Diane Ravitch, ed., The American Reader--Words That Moved a Nation, p. 119.

1. What does "a house" represent in the speech?

2. What did Lincoln mean by the phrase "A house divided against itself can not stand?"

3. Does Lincoln believe that the house will remain divided? Justify your answer.

4. How might these ideas contribute to the conflict between the North and the South?