Rhetorical Devices in House Divided Speech

Lincoln ends the speech on an inspirational note: There may be obstacles, but if the Republicans persevere, “the victory is sure to come.” Lincoln appeals to his audience’s sense of optimism and party pride in order to leave them feeling hopeful about the future. Though much of Lincoln’s speech is focused on dismantling the conspiracy behind the recent pro-slavery trends, his final call to action affirms the strength and moral superiority of the Republican cause. Though the Democratic establishment may be conspiring to expand slavery across the United States, the Republicans “shall not fail” in their effort to oppose that expansion.

Lincoln contrasts the adjectives “disciplined, proud, and pampered” with “wavered, dissevered, and belligerent” to highlight how the Democrats have weakened since the last election. After Douglas broke with his party and rejected the Lecompton Constitution, Southern Democrats began criticizing him heavily. Lincoln argues that if Republicans could effectively oppose the Democrats when the Democrats were still “disciplined” and together, then they can certainly obtain victory now that the Democrats are plagued by internal strife.

The Republican party was formed in 1854 in response to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It was made up primarily of abolitionists, former Whigs, anti-slavery Democrats, and free soilers. The central focus of the party was to oppose the expansion of slavery and promote economic reform, and the “discordant” assortment of political alignments formed a tense truce around that platform. By presenting their shared triumphs in the previous election, Lincoln appeals to his fellow Republicans’ sense of unity and brotherhood. Though they come from different backgrounds, they find common ground in resisting slavery. Together, they will continue to “battle” against the Democrats and prevent the expansion of slavery.

Lincoln uses another anaphoric tricolon to contrast with his description of Douglas. Whereas Douglas is “not with” the Republicans and “does not promise ever to be,” the “undoubted friends” of the party have their “hearts in the work” and “care for the result.” As he brings his speech to a close, Lincoln emphasizes the important work ahead of the Republican party. He encourages the delegates of the convention, and voters in general, to entrust the cause of anti-slavery only to “undoubted friends”—which Lincoln has made clear Douglas is not. Instead, voters should support Lincoln himself, whose “hands are free” to take on the fight against slavery’s expansion.

Lincoln uses an anaphoric tricolon to reinforce his claim that Douglas is not presently aligned with the Republican party or its goals. Each successive clause reminds his audience that Douglas is an outsider and that he has made no promise to ever support the anti-slavery clause. Indeed, much of Lincoln’s speech has focused on highlighting how Douglas has aided the pro-slavery cause. So, rather than putting their hopes in Douglas, the Republicans should instead vote for Lincoln, who they can be sure will uphold their beliefs.

Lincoln inserts a disclaimer into his speech wherein he assures his audience that he has not meant to offend Douglas with his accusations. His show of respect for Douglas’s “great ability” acts as an appeal to ethos as Lincoln reassures his audience that collaboration is possible. However, Lincoln will not compromise on the Republican’s “great cause” of resisting slavery. For the time being, Douglas is an outsider to the Republicans, excluded from Lincoln’s unifying “we.” Douglas must first express a firm commitment to the anti-slavery cause, at which point the Republican party will gladly welcome him.

Lincoln scathingly questions a journalist’s assertion that Douglas will be needed to resist the reinstatement of the transatlantic slave trade. Since Douglas has expressed no moral qualms about the practice, Lincoln posits that he should have no issues with the foreign trade. By linking Douglas with a practice that is almost universally abhorred, Lincoln casts Douglas as someone whose apathy towards the morality of slavery is actively dangerous. Lincoln asks his audience to consider how Douglas could possibly be a advocate for the anti-slavery cause when he has made it clear that he has no personal investment in it. He also asks Douglas to defend his apparent apathy, foregrounding slavery, an issue that Douglas sought to avoid, as a key campaign issue in the senate race.

Douglas earned the nickname “Little Giant” due to his short physical stature and commanding presence. Lincoln, who stood a full foot taller than the 5’4” Douglas, subtly mocks Douglas by alluding to this nickname. By including the adverb “very” before the adjective “small,” Lincoln emphasizes Douglas’s short stature. The “Little Giant” nickname was meant as a show of respect to Douglas. However, many of his political detractors also targeted his height as a means of discrediting or belittling him, as Lincoln seems to do here.

The “little quarrel” that Lincoln refers to is the disagreement between Buchanan and Douglas over the ratification of the Lecompton Constitution. Many more moderate Republicans viewed this dispute as evidence that Douglas might break with the Democrats and become a Republican anti-slavery champion. However, Lincoln dismisses this possibility and frames the dispute as “little.” This diminishes the perceived magnitude of the disagreement and reinforces Douglas’s continued attachment to the Democrats.

Lincoln establishes the importance of a Republican victory in the upcoming election. If slavery is to be resisted, then the anti-slavery party must win office. However, some Republicans harbored hopes that Douglas might actually be on their side. His steadfast neutrality on the moral issues surrounding slavery made him a popular candidate for more moderate voters. Lincoln acknowledges this divide in voter sentiment by posing the question of how the Republican cause can best be advanced. The following paragraph proceeds to advocate against Douglas by portraying him as pro-slavery—or at least not strongly enough opposed to it.

Lincoln appeals to pathos by creating a contrast between the long-cherished hope of the Republican party and what he views as the imminent reality of slavery’s expansion. The “pleasant dream” of slave states abolishing slavery on their own is unlikely in the current climate. Lincoln encourages his audience to reject naivety and instead recognize that forces are conspiring to expand slavery across the United States. By crafting a chilling image of Illinois’s being forced to become a slave state, Lincoln appeals to his audience’s fear of having their freedoms and morals trespassed upon. He then issues a call to action: the Democratic dynasty must be overthrown or pro-slavery forces may overwhelm Republican opposition.

Lincoln appeal to logos by framing the vague language of both the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision as part of an equation: The inputs are the lack of language protecting states’ and territories’ rights to ban slavery and the vague assertion that the Constitution takes precedence over state and territorial laws; the output is a “nice little niche” wherein the Supreme Court could rule in a future case that the US Consitution prohibits states and territories from excluding slavery. Lincoln highlights the rationality of his own arguments by establishing a clear and logical cause and effect. He also draws attention to the apparent intentionality of the vague language, reinforcing his theory that Douglas and the Democrats are conspiring to expand slavery.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Nelson (1792–1873) was one of the concurring judges in the Dred Scott decision. His reasons for rejecting Scott’s suit and ruling with the court differed from Taney’s. Unlike Taney, who was a staunch supporter of slaveowner rights, Nelson preferred a narrow, uncontroversial approach to law. Nelson’s concurring opinion did not address the unconstitutionality of the Missouri Compromise or black citizenship. Instead, it focused on the necessity of popular sovereignty and state’s rights. Lincoln’s direct quote from Nelson’s concurrence bolsters his ethos by establishing Lincoln as someone intimately familiar with the Dred Scott case. He also references having read the opinions of all nine justices, further positioning Lincoln as an informed speaker and legal scholar.

Lincoln notes that neither the opinion of the court nor any of the concurring opinions from the Dred Scott case explicitly declare the right of states or territories to exclude slavery. He draws a parallel between this omission and the similar omission found in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which also only explicitly declares the right of territories to allow slavery. Lincoln admit that this might be “a mere omission.” However, he also recalls the rejection of the proposed Chase amendment, which would have given territories the right to exclude slavery. By saying that no one can be “quite sure” of the reasoning behind the omission, Lincoln sets up his claim that the ability of inidvidual states and territories to exclude slavery may be in jeopardy in the current political climate.

Lincoln drops the more formalized and respectful terms of address he has used thus far in favor of referring to Stephen Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger Taney, and James Buchanan by their first names. Using the first names of elected officials in formal settings is considered disrespectful. In doing so, Lincoln is demystifying these powerful individuals and encouraging his audience to evaluate their actions based on the results of their policies, not on their titles.

Lincoln uses anaphora—or the repetition of a word or phrase in successive clauses—to showcase the conclusions he hopes to have led his audience to. His rigorous examination of the recent legislative and judicial record has established the logic behind his claims. Now, through his repetition of the phrase “plainly enough now,” Lincoln presents some of the connections he has developed between the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision. The adverb “plainly” refers to something that is obvious or easy to identify. By introducing his ideas with “plainly,” Lincoln indicates that his conclusions should be clear and apparent in light of the evidence he has presented.

Lincoln repeats this phrase from the first line of the speech in order to transition into a new section of his argument. The first half of the speech focuses on recent judicial and legislative history with regards to slavery. Now, Lincoln begins discussing the future and “whither” the United States is “tending” with regards to slavery. This repeated phrase provides a bookend to his analysis of the past and indicates to listeners that he will now begin addressing the future and the relevant campaign issues—including Douglas.

Lincoln shows his frustration with the Dred Scott decision as he illustrates how damaging the ruling has been to the anti-slavery cause. Not only can the territories be effectively converted to slaveholding regions, but the court decision has also put free states in jeopardy. If slaveowners can freely transport their slaves into free states and then take them back to slave states, then there is little preventing them from settling in free states with their slaves more permanently. The court decision has essentially denied free states the right to hold slaveowners accountable to the laws of the region. Instead, slaveowners can simply return to more sympathetic slave states to settle legal matters pertaining to slave ownership.

Lincoln frames the Supreme Court’s ruling that Congress cannot exclude slavery from a territory as a bid to expand slavery’s influence. If slavery cannot be prohibited by Congress or a territorial legislature, then individuals can move their slaves into territories as they please. Lincoln posits that even if a territory decides to enter the Union as a free state, it will have a hard time removing the influence of slavery once it has been established. Combined with the Supreme Court’s ruling that Congress cannot free or confiscate anyone’s slaves, the territories have essentially been barred from ever effectively excluding slavery.

As he discusses the three primary findings of the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln explains what he believes the reasoning behind each stipulation was. He infers that the court's decision to rule that African Americans cannot be citizens stems from a desire to deny them the constitutional “privileges and immunities” entailed in citizenship. In order to deny Dred Scott his freedom, the court had to strip away his constitutional rights. By directly quoting from the constitution, Lincoln appeals to logos and emphasizes the legal ramifications of the court’s decision. If African Americans cannot be citizens, then they have no constitutional protections nor do they have the ability to legally challenge their status.

Lincoln extends his machinery metaphor and uses a numbered list to review the stipulations of the Dred Scott decision. By addressing the court holdings in an organized manner, Lincoln brings clarity to both the individual mechanisms of the decision and the overarching implications of it. Though his audience was likely familiar with the court decision, Lincoln’s decision to review the individual parts of it allows him to interpret the different components within his own argumentative framework. It also extends the industrial metaphor by approaching the parts of the decision as one might approach a technical manual. Each part of the Dred Scott decision serves a different purpose. Together, they work as a “machine” that is expressly designed to facilitate the spread of slavery.

Lincoln uses the first-person singular pronoun “I” sparingly throughout the speech, favoring instead the more unifying plural pronoun “we.” However, he reverts to an “I” statement as he questions Douglas’s apparent apathy with regards to the slavery issue. As opposed to Lincoln’s more generalized criticisms of Douglas and the Democratic establishment, the use of an “I” statement personalizes the sentiment. Lincoln stakes a claim to the moral highground by framing apathy—and the cultivation of it in the “public mind”—as incomprehensible. For Lincoln and his Republican audience, slavery is too important of an issue to not care about, making Douglas’s supposed neutrality immoral and cowardly.

James Buchanan (1791–1868) was the fifteenth President of the United States. A Democrat, he aspired to end the conflict over slavery through compromise and frequently sided with the pro-slavery South in order to avoid inflaming secessionist sentiments. Lincoln refers to Buchanan’s election as “the second point gained” by the pro-slavery coalition, since it guaranteed the presidential endorsement of whatever the Supreme Court decided in the Dred Scott case. The short, clipped phrases Lincoln uses to introduce Buchanan’s election give the speech a sense of narrative motion. Lincoln emphasizes the passage of time in order to further highlight the suspect timing of the Dred Scott decision, which came shortly after Buchanan’s inauguration.

Lincoln’s audience would have been familiar with the details of both the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision. However, rather than citing them as separate pieces of evidence for the encroachment of pro-slavery sentiment, Lincoln instead proposes that there is an insidious conspiracy controlling the trends of the US government. Instead of relying on his audience’s pre-conceived understanding of recent legislative and judicial history, Lincoln instead foregrounds his own interpretation of events. By explaining the sequence of events in such extensive detail, Lincoln establishes a clear narrative that highlights the allegedly suspicious timing of these two pro-slavery gains, bolstering his argument.

Lincoln presents a hyperbolically simplified version of the debate that he imagines to have occured in Congress around the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Specifically, he references the text of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and one of the amendments introduced to the act by Senator Salmon P. Chase. This amendment would have allowed new territories to vote to either legalize or ban slavery, as opposed to the bill itself, which only allowed them to legalize it. Lincoln appeals to logos by quoting directly from the Kansas-Nebraska Act and emphasizing that it is only logical to allow the territories to exclude slavery if popular sovereignty and freedom are truly the goal. By noting the opposition of Douglas and his Southern supporters to the amendment, Lincoln calls into question their true motives.

Lincoln appeals to pathos by reframing the alleged freedom of popular sovereignty as an infringement upon the rights of anti-slavery individuals. During the 1850s, slaveowners often portrayed themselves as victims who needed to have their rights protected. According to them, the north was attempting to destroy their traditional values and way of life. Lincoln subverts this narrative and instead appeals to the righteous indignation of abolitionists and anti-slavery voters who have now had their right to protest slavery infringed upon. In his view, popular sovereignty is not a doctrine of freedom, but rather a doctrine that explicitly supports slavery.

“Squatter sovereignty” is a derisive name for the controversial doctrine of popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty dictates that the US territories should decide through the popular vote whether to enter the Union as slave or free states. Its leading advocate was Stephen A. Douglas. Proponents of slavery referred to popular sovereignty as “the sacred right of self government.” Opponents of slavery, like Lincoln, viewed it as a thinly veiled means of spreading slavery to the territories. By using the term “squatter sovereignty,” Lincoln aligns himself with the anti-slavery cause and also disparages his opponent’s key philosophy.

As he speaks, Lincoln keeps a tally of the “points” gained by the pro-slavery cause. This serves a dual purpose in that it helps give the speech structure and also bolsters the logic of Lincoln’s assertions. Since Lincoln delivered these remarks verbally, maintaining his audience’s focus was an area of concern. By counting out the “points” gained, Lincoln offers his audience a verbal cue by which to keep track of his arguments. Tallying the figurative points also allows Lincoln to establish a framework for his argument and control the progression of ideas. By framing his theory in terms of points, Lincoln provides the audience a metric by which to judge the gains made by slavery proponents, creating an appeal to logos.

Lincoln asks a rhetorical question, confronting his audience with a startling possibility: As opposed to slavery’s being abolished or remaining contained to the South, recent events have paved the way for it to expand into the North as well. Up until the 1850s, the balance between slave states and free states had been carefully maintained. The North had tentatively resigned itself to allowing slavery to continue in the established South, with their focus instead shifting to stopping its expansion into new regions. However, after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was enacted, Northern anti-slavery sentiments were inflamed. Lincoln appeals to pathos by asking his audience to confront the implications of the recent pro-slavery political shift, invoking their fears surrounding its expansion.

Lincoln employs parallel structure and metaphor to emphasize the instability of the Union in its current state. Just as a “house divided against itself cannot stand,” neither can a nation torn between opposing ideologies continue to function. By comparing the United States to a house, Lincoln evokes the visual image of a structure on the verge of collapse. A house is capable of sheltering and protecting its inhabitants, but it is also capable of caving in on them. Lincoln uses repetition and parallelism to add severity to his words, emphasizing the image of a house falling over and offering a grim prediction for the future: If the United States cannot come together on the topic of slavery, then it will never be truly stable.

This phrase, which gives the speech its title, is an allusion to verses found in the biblical books of Luke, Mark, and Matthew. By situating his argument in a biblical framework, Lincoln gains moral authority and appeals to the religiosity of his audience. In the phrase’s biblical context, Jesus Christ highlights the foolishness of his detractors, who claim that he exorcised a demon using satanic power. He logically points out that if satanic power could be used to expel demons, Satan’s influence would quickly decline. Lincoln uses this phrase in a similar context, reminding his audience that the prolonged political divide over slavery will continue to weaken the nation.

As Kansas and Nebraska were being formally settled in the early 1850s, debates sparked in Congress over the expansion of slavery into these new territories. Several pro-slavery Southern politicians refused to vote on important infrastructural legislation unless slavery was legalized in Kansas and Nebraska. Lincoln employs parallelism in the phrase “avowed object and confident promise” to add a mocking rhythm to his condemnation of the “policy” that was implemented to end this “agitation.” By crafting a memorably parallel phrase using assertive diction, Lincoln creates contrast with the next sentence, which outlines the failure of that “confident promise.”

Lincoln uses the first-person plural pronoun “we” throughout his speech as he addresses the delegates of the Illinois Republican State Convention. By using “we,” Lincoln appeals to a sense of shared identity and political alignment. Lincoln establishes the Republican party as the defenders of the anti-slavery cause. As he discusses the recent gains made by pro-slavery advocates, he uses inclusive pronouns to share in his audience’s fears surrounding slavery’s expansion.