Before long the most significant of the great Northerners of the
time was to describe this impossible condition by the appropriate
metaphor of a house divided against itself. It was not, however,
until eight years after the division of the country had been
acknowledged in 1850 that these words were uttered. In those
eight years both sections awoke to the seriousness of the
differences that they had admitted. Both perceived that, instead
of solving their problem in 1850, they had merely drawn sharply
the lines of future conflict. In every thoughtful mind there
arose the same alternative questions: Is there no solution but
fighting it out until one side destroys the other, or we end as
two nations confessedly independent? Or is there some conceivable
new outlet for this opposition of energy on the part of the
sections, some new mode of permanent adjustment?
It was at the moment when thinking men were asking these
questions that one of the nimblest of politicians took the center
of the stage. Stephen A. Douglas was far-sighted enough to
understand the land-hunger of the time. One is tempted to add
that his ear was to the ground. The statement will not, however,
go unchallenged, for able apologists have their good word to say
for Douglas.
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