A House-Divided

[maharba]

My point was apparently well taken by both the South and by Lincoln's friends. That he was re-launching himself with the radicals and appearing as an Abolitionist. The abolitionists had long sought to break up the Union. They caviled, sneered at,
and even burned the U.S. Constitution, itself. William Herndon and others rightly saw this new policy of (senate candidate) Lincoln as a death knell to his election prospects. And he went
on to lose to Senator Douglas. Lincoln himself had tried only one case before Chief Justice Taney and lost. Lincoln now became dismissive of the High Court decision in Dred Scott. And in the House Divided address, he gives a hyperbolic anticipation of future Supreme Court rulings. Lincoln calls for an overthrow, he is apparently joining the Abolitionists to say that the U.S. Constitution was a mistake, after what three-score and ten years? The North had been impairing the Constitution, their abolitionists calling openly for disunion. When the South finally did secede, the same radicals Republicans and abolitionists suddenly switched gears and their newfound passion to 'save the Union'. Then, they projected an instantly reversed view of the Constitution: which allowed no disunion and no secession.