Half-Gods of American Literature

since it is made, and we mean to reverse it,” he asserted.

Lincoln did provide Douglas with one opening which the latter exploited with a degree of success. This was his famous statement to the effect that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Douglas was quick, if not very skillful, in pointing out that such doctrine, if pushed to its logical limit, is the principle of despotic government. “Uniformity is the parent of despotism the world over, not only in politics but in religion,” he answered. Lincoln had to spend a lot of time in subsequent speeches digging himself out of that one, explaining that “it would be foolish for us to insist on having a cranberry law here in Illinois, where we have no cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they have cranberries.”