House Divided according to Shmoop

[Amy L.]

Ok, so the point of the speech was perhaps to distinguish Lincoln from Douglas, as any politician does, and was done most excellently here.

Well, I have no proof (have not read enough), but I believe the conspiracy idea came from people like Sumner, and maybe Chase uttered something along those lines...
So maybe there was no Slavocracy conspiracy, but, as with the Abolitionists, there was a pressure and movement in a certain direction which was unfortunately successful.
If the Supreme Court could include a biased agenda in the Dred Scott case, the US could certainly awake up one morning to find slavery legal everywhere.
States'-rights when convenient, Federal power also when convenient. I cannot image how Whigs/Repub again and again acquiesced. ... But I again digress.

I'm surprised in my haphazard reading, that I haven't come across a more aghast response to this conspiracy theory. ...

I shall look into the Jafa book, thank you Verge!
And the Fehrenbacher book is very good, thank you for the suggestion Roger.