“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far on into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation had not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States--old as well as new, North as well as South. “Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination--piece of machinery, so to speak--compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief master-workers from the beginning.” These were awful words to the world, and with awe were they received. Lincoln was the first man among the “moderates” who had dared to speak so plainly. His friends were angry, but in due time this tremendous speech had the right effect, for it announced the truth. Meanwhile, Lincoln and Douglas were again paired together as rivals, and at one place the latter put to his adversary a series of questions, which were promptly answered. In return, Lincoln gave Douglas four others, by one of which he was asked if the people of a United States territory could in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits? To which Douglas replied that the people of a territory _had_ the lawful means to exclude slavery by legislative action. This reply brought Douglas into direct antagonism with the pro-slavery men. He hoped, by establishing a “platform” of his own, to head so many Democrats that the Republicans would welcome his accession, and make him President. But Lincoln, by these questions, and by his unyielding attacks, weakened him to his ruin. It is true that Judge Douglas gained his seat in the Senate, but it was by an old and unjust law in the Legislature, as Lincoln really had four thousand majority.