ion will die out. A house devided against itself cannot stand. ** The government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. (Abraham Lincoln, Speech at the Republican state convention, Springfield, Illinois, June 17, 1858) From his side, Stephen Douglas was sure that the government can endure forever, devided into free and slave States as our fathers made it, - each state having the right to prohibit, abolish, or sustain slavery, just as pleases. (Stephen Douglas, Speech at Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858) Passions also aroused by arguments over the fugitive slave laws and over slavery in general were further excited by the vigorous proslavery utterances of William L. Yancey, one of the leading Southern fire-eaters, and the activities of the Northern abolitionist John Brown, who was later called the man who begin the war that ended slavery. (Frederick Douglass, Speech at Storer College, Harpers Ferry, Virginia, May, 1882) The wedges of separation caused by slavery split large Protestant sects into Northern and Southern branches and dissolved the Whig Party. The crucial point was reached in the presidential election of 1860, in which the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, defeated three opponents. Lincoln's victory was the signal for the secession of South Carolina. We affirm that these ends for which this government was instituted have been defeated and the Government itself has been destructive of them by the action of the nonslaveholding states,- declared South Carolina, feeling discontent about the government encouraging and assisting thousands of slaves to leave their homes. (A Declaration of the Causes Which Induced the Secession of South Carolina, South Carolina, December 24, 1860) Lincoln responded to this action that no state has a right to leave the Union: In doing this there needs to be bloodshed and violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the nat...
