Questions 32-41 are based on the following
passage.
These passages are adapted from the Lincoln‑Douglas debates. Passage 1 is from a statement by Stephen Douglas. Passage 2 is from a statement by Abraham Lincoln. Douglas and Lincoln engaged in a series of debates while competing for a US Senate seat in 1858.
Passage 1
Mr. Lincoln likens that bond of the Federal
Constitution, joining Free and Slave States together,
to a house divided against itself, and says that it is
contrary to the law of God, and cannot stand.
5 When did he learn, and by what authority does he
proclaim, that this Government is contrary to the law
of God and cannot stand? It has stood thus divided
into Free and Slave States from its organization up to
this day. During that period we have increased from
10 four millions to thirty millions of people; we have
extended our territory from the Mississippi to the
Pacific Ocean; we have acquired the Floridas and
Texas, and other territory sufficient to double our
geographical extent; we have increased in population,
15 in wealth, and in power beyond any example on
earth; we have risen from a weak and feeble power to
become the terror and admiration of the civilized
world; and all this has been done under a
Constitution which Mr. Lincoln, in substance, says is
20 in violation of the law of God; and under a Union
divided into Free and Slave States, which Mr. Lincoln
thinks, because of such division, cannot stand.
Surely, Mr. Lincoln is a wiser man than those who
framed the Government. . . .
25 I now come back to the question, why cannot this
Union exist forever, divided into Free and Slave
States, as our fathers made it? It can thus exist if each
State will carry out the principles upon which our
institutions were founded; to wit, the right of each
30 State to do as it pleases, without meddling with its
neighbors. Just act upon that great principle, and this
Union will not only live forever, but it will extend
and expand until it covers the whole continent, and
makes this confederacy one grand, ocean-bound
35 Republic. We must bear in mind that we are yet a
young nation, growing with a rapidity unequalled in
the history of the world, that our national increase
is great, and that the emigration from the old world is
increasing,requiring us to expand and acquire new
40 territory from time to time, in order to give our
people land to live upon. If we live upon the principle
of State rights and State sovereignty, each State
regulating its own affairs and minding its own
business, we can go on and extend indefinitely,just
45 as fast and as far as we need the territory. . . .
Passage 2
In complaining of what I said in my speech at
Springfield, in which he says I accepted my
nomination for the Senatorship . . . he again quotes
that portion in which I said that “a house divided
50 against itself cannot stand.” Let me say a word in
regard to that matter. He tries to persuade us that
there must be a variety in the different institutions of
the States of the Union; that that variety necessarily
proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the face
55 of the country, and the difference in the natural
features of the States. I agree to all that. Have these
very matters ever produced any difficulty among us?
Not at all. Have we ever had any quarrel over the fact
that they have laws in Louisiana designed to regulate
60 the commerce that springs from the production of
sugar? Or because we have a different class relative to
the production of flour in this State? Have they
produced any differences? Not at all. They are the
very cements of this Union. They don’t make the
65 house a “house divided against itself.” They are the
props that hold up the house and sustain the Union.
But has it been so with this element of slavery?
Have we not always had quarrels and difficulties over
it? And when will we cease to have quarrels over it?
70 Like causes produce like effects. It is worth while to
observe that we have generally had comparative
peace upon the slavery question, and that there has
been no cause for alarm until it was excited by the
effort to spread it into new territory. Whenever it has
75 been limited to its present bounds, and there has
been no effort to spread it, there has been peace.All
the trouble and convulsion has proceeded from
efforts to spread it over more territory. It was thus at
the date of the Missouri Compromise. It was so again
80 with the annexation of Texas; so with the territory
acquired by the Mexican War; and it is so now.
Whenever there has been an effort to spread it there
has been agitation and resistance. . . . Do you think
that the nature of man will be changed, that the same
85 causes that produced agitation at one time will not
have the same effect at another?