They may change their ground, but
they do not cease. I had seen this in Europe and in Italy, where in the
January just past a certain Orsini had attempted the life of Louis
Napoleon because he had not acceded to the labors of Cavour and thus
hastened the liberty of Italy. And yet Italy was standing and France.
Houses are divided everywhere and they stand. Beelzebub is crafty enough
to cast out devils here and there in order to confound his kingdom with
the Kingdom of Heaven. Of course he does not cast all the devils out--if
he did he would lose his kingdom--only enough to make himself appear as
one of the divine wonder-workers. A house divided against itself can
stand, even as the world can stand with both good and evil in it, with
both God and Satan in divided authority over it; and even as man has
good and evil in his own nature and still lives and works without
becoming wholly good or wholly evil. So could this country stand divided
into free and slave states as it was formed at the beginning. There was
not the slightest chance that it would ever become all slave, as Lincoln
had presented one of the alternatives of a divided house. There was
great chance that it would become all free by natural processes, as
Douglas had indicated over and over again before the time of these
debates.
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